Guns, Roses, and the Queen of Hearts
by LadyA.R.R.O
Summary: Spike's dead... so is Faye? Then whose this stripper named Alice? Why is a bandaged man named Jericho following her around? Story Excerpt "It was like a bad horror movie with too much gore, not enough action, and entirely no sex..." Sex,gore,blood, M
1. Loveless

**Author's Note** – _I love Cowboy Bebop and have loved it for a long time, but wasn't exactly happy with the ending. So, thusly! I have changed the ending to suit my own tastes, have fun and R&R. Lots of love._

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><p><em><span>Disclaimer:<span>_ I do not own Cowboy Bebop or any of its characters.

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><p><strong>Chapter 1<strong>_  
>Loveless<em>

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><p><em>~~~~~It was like a bad horror movie with too much gore, not enough action, and entirely no sex. One would think with the a cast of gun toting, hard-core bounty hunting, rowdy bunch of space Cowboys, that the play might have had a better finale. Maybe a happy ending, where the fiendishly attractive wanderer got his girl. You know, the stunningly attractive, picturesque beauty whose looks could kill… Just like that. She could aim the barrel of a gun in your face and you would beg for her to squeeze the trigger. The last thing your vision would take in was the flash, before a stream of cascading long, blonde hair completely erased you from existence. It happened before to countless throes of men who had fallen under her siren's spell. This enchantment that overpowered men's feeble brains and them left stupidly powerless to this harpy's fangs as she sunk them into their soft, yielding flesh under the guise of a gentle kiss. It was sickening.~~~~~<em>

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><p>~"Oi! Alice, get your ass out here it's your turn, you dumb bitch!" Rizzoli was a large, burly man who bounced by night and harassed the strippers, using them like fuck posts whenever he wanted, all other times of the day.<p>

~The dark hared, paled skinned woman jumped to her feet and darted for the door, slipping passed Rizzoli's rotund frame like he wasn't even there. She wrapped her fingers around the dark red sash at her waist and slipped out of her smooth, silk robe without hesitation, even as she stalked seductively into the darkened room, shimmering with multi-colored lights aimed directly for the stage. A song was being spun into the player and the music paused only long enough for Alice to mount the platform steps in her eight inch stiletto heels, wearing only a red thong and a lacy, black mesh bra.

~Men were hollering and whistling loud. They had been waiting for this all night, just wading through the mediocre whores who could barely sway their hips to a beat.

~Alice stared down at the floor, a veil of dark, curly tresses covering her vision. The announcer overhead was drum-rolling her name as the roar of the hooting men screamed. A pulse that beat throughout the room thundered in the young women's chest as she waited for her cue to begin.

~A stage light suddenly flicked on, a glaring cherry red that dressed the scantily clad woman in a harsh glow and turned her beautiful curves almost lethally sharp. She lifted her face to the crowd on the song's first note and smiled mysteriously, sending the men wild as she began her routine.

~The stripper danced around the pole provocatively, her thick, cute ass bouncing with each step while her hand gripped tight to her golden post, swiftly flinging herself around. Her muscular legs swung above her head and hooked around the hanging shaft, feeling herself spinning upside-down with hundreds of gawkers ogling over the tantalizing view.

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><p>~<em>"'Tell me something…'" There was a glint of a gun as a young woman, maybe only a few years younger than Alice was now, stood in front of someone… A man. He was trying to leave, his eyes set and ready for the onslaught of things to come. There would be violence, lots of people were going to die and the young woman saw it in her love's eye.<em>

_~"What about us!" She was still aiming her new age Glock between his eyes, feeling so many all consuming emotions, she wasn't sure what to do with them._

_~"You guys are adults. You can manage without me," he sounded so nonchalant about the whole ordeal, throwing a pack over his shoulders that clanked full of loaded weapons for the oncoming destruction._

_~"But what about those of us who won't be? What about me?" She took a menacing step forward, hoping for a reaction, any kind of reaction whether it was good or bad, keeping her gun shakily aimed._

_~The spiky haired man wasn't in the least bit fazed. He had stared down enough metal gun barrels, begging for them to end it all, but as of yet he had not been so lucky. Drawing in close, he touched his forehead to the weapon's end, "do you see why my eyes are two different colors?" He didn't give a chance for the woman to utter a word, "because my real eye sees the present while my mechanical one replays the past over and over again."_

_~"Stop it! Stop letting it take you over then. Just let the past go, Spike!" She saw the man's eyes dance, the living one full of regret and sadness, while the fake merely taunted Faye with insanity and mirthful laughter. He snatched up her hands in his own, this bitch of a woman he had never given so much as a passing thought to was the only one fighting his death, when not even he could do that._

_~"Let me go," he whispered, somewhere in his mind there was a wandering thought that vaguely marveled upon the what ifs and would haves. The what if Faye Valentine had been in Julia's place, would he have loved her as much as the blonde? And the would have of Faye being a good replacement for the leather clad mistress he'd taken so long ago from the Syndicate leader. He wanted to know Faye's touch, the feel of her beneath him, on him, all around him. But as quickly as the thought came, he squelched it. There was no room here for thoughts of regret for things he might've have wanted. His time in this existence had passed, as had the life of his enemy. His star was falling and fading, there was nothing left._

_~"I can't!" She chewed on her lower lip, tasting the copperyness of her own blood, "I can't… because I think…"_

_~His eyes suddenly went cold and emotionless. He didn't need this right now, not at the end. There was no turning back from this point on and he pushed through her, hearing the hammer cock and her clothes rustle just behind him._

_~"I'll shoot! I'll do it, Spike Spiegal!"_

_~He didn't even pause, breezing through the living area even as his two other comrades watched on without a word. That only served to irritate the all ready irate female bounty hunter more._

_~A string of gunshots fired off into the ceiling then, one right after the other. Just three. Bang… Bang… Bang… And the aching woman fell into a rack of sobs as she sunk to her knees, fighting hard to make the green-haired monkey of the Bebop stay. He needed to stop fighting it, should've just forgotten about his past and the long dead blonde temptress along with it, but he couldn't and Faye knew that._

_~Just as Spike was about to leave for his airship's hangar, he stopped to chance a small glance down the hall to the gun toting woman. She continued to hold herself tightly, curled up against the wall like some beaten dog, "...good bye, Faye Valentine..."_

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><p>~The sounds Alice had been trying so hard to block out came on full force again, drilling into her head the screaming voices of horny criminals all begging for the blissful human surrender they all craved, knowing this sultry dancer was the only one with the skills to relieve them of the strain.<p>

~She was slowly removing her bra, easily unclipping it and swaying her body to the beat, playing dutifully coy as she hid herself momentarily. The crowd grew insanely restless. They cried out for more, one greasy bastard flashing a few hundred cred chips to the stage's starlit as if to furtively ask for the precious sheer undergarment.

~He deposited the precious cash on the rim of the stage and watched in awed fascination while the beautiful woman teased him agonizingly with the mesh bra. She brushed it over his face and down his chest, swooping her stiletto heel expertly over the money to bring it into the safety of the stage. It was hers now in exchange for a pair of barely used underclothes. She thought it to be a fair trade and finally tossed the garment towards her pleasantly shaking customer, the thin, gossamer material floating through the air for a second before landing right on the man's head and shifting down slightly to rest on his ear and brow. A hilarious image to Alice, yet the only expression change she made was the slight upturn in her pretty, puckered lips.

~She watched bemused as the man with her newly acquired bra rocked back and forth in his seat, the rock hard erection obviously pressing against his tight jeans. He was like the other troves of male cattle paraded through this damn club and absolutely no different in the eyes of the dark-haired stripper. He would get no relief from her and was best to try the other club whores before he even considered Alice again.

~Her practiced fingers, danced along the edges of her thong, taunting her still ogling audience with only slight peeks of her naked ass and she felt the rising bellow for more from the crowd coming to a rising surge in the pit of her gut. They wouldn't last much more, and honestly, neither would she. She was all ready bored of this song and its tactless meaning in her life, looking forward to getting off the stage when the soonest possible opportunity presented itself.

~The song was coming to a crescendo, her cream colored hips in constant motion as the deliciously sinful pair of scarlet red panties drifted further and further down. They hit her ankles, her delicate hands ghosting over the porcelain flesh while her onlookers went mad. She stepped from the garment and kicked them aside, getting down to the real hardcore stuff now.

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><p><em>~"I'm going after him!" Faye screamed to Jet, receiving an eye-roll in return. The older, retired cop knew dramatics when he saw them and wasn't in the least bit surprised that the dark haired beauty felt so unrighteously vexed with Spike's departure, that she had to follow. He knew the woman's deep, in lain feelings for the old geezer's younger counterpart, probably before she even did, but Spiegal's soul had all ready been stolen away, leaving the leftover shell of a man that was the cop's best friend these past few years.<em>

_~"Let me out!" She was bellowing, banging her fists uselessly against the hangar's locked door, where just beyond, laid her ship sitting almost quarantined away in the corner. All she wanted to do was to follow Spike, to show him he didn't have to throw away his life, but Jet was insistent the young male bounty hunter was at the end of the road and that was something Faye just refused to accept._

_"We're dropping Ed off with her dad, Faye. Then you can do whatever you want, but I'm not letting your bitchy ass—" he was cut off when Faye cocked her hammer, the barrel touching the back of jet's head._

_~"Open the door or I **will **kill you," her eyes danced crazily, mouth hanging slightly agape. She played every bit the insane mental patient, gone mad with rage and she wasn't going to accept 'no' as an answer anymore. Jet knew if he denied the woman, she would shoot him and still leave. It was better for himself and his head if he just did as she asked, Spike had gotten a large enough lead that she would never catch up anyway. She was all ready too late._

_~Sighing, he pushed the hangar's release button and watched as Faye retreated for her ship, taking only minutes to get her hunk of metal junk into gear before racing off into the silent expanse of space. She sped away as if Lucifer himself were on her heels, and thought nothing of the oncoming consequences for her actions to come. All that mattered was Spike, finding him, hurting him something fierce, and bringing him back even if he didn't want to._

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><p>~Alice felt her routine wrapping up, the last few seconds of the song coming to a quick close and she was glad for it. She smiled giddily as she slipped provocatively into the splits and flashed her hot core to her biggest tipper, receiving almost five grand in creds as the song closed. The announcer then crackled onto the microphone and the lights came up to a dulling gray so as not to hurt the customers eyes, but signaled the end of Alice's unforgettable dance.<p>

~The woman reached for her robe and threw it on, heading down the steps while her adoring public of criminals and murderers and rapists continued to throw cash at her, all in the hopes that she would do one of her blue-moon rare encores. Though, with this many men tonight, she generally did. It put an extra few thousand creds of her stage, but tonight was different. Tonight was a special night for her that Poker Alice habitually took off, never working past midnight. It pissed off her boss, Ricky Carillo, though that young woman hardly cared what that fat tub of lard thought, she wasn't going to give up tonight for a few extra bucks. Years ago, she might have done that, but not anymore. She was a different person than the woman she used to be, and had hell of a lot more prideful in that even if she didn't exactly have a moral based career choice. It still meant something to her, no matter how miniscule, something like happy satisfaction blossomed in her chest when she knew she wasn't gambling to make her next buck or whoring herself out for food. Yes, this was much better than all that.

~"Where do you want your cash?" Angel asked, the stripper who always seemed to follow Alice around. She was a genuine girl, honest and kind, never a good combo in this industry. Most times, nice girls were eaten, chewed up, and spit out before they could even blink, and adding Angel's few problems into the mix, Alice knew the girl was going to go down in a swift hole that likely ended up in her being dead. Stripping and whoring one's self out were two things that went hand-in-hand in this industry, which Angel did frequently to make money for her bad habits, but doing and selling drugs was another monster entirely and not a smart one to go up against on a planet full of seedy men all wanting to make a few bucks as well.

~Solar Nectar, a raging liquid poison made from all kinds of nasty things not meant for human consumption, and thrown in with the lot of hallucinogen and powerful aphrodisiac. Some even called it a love potion due strictly to the way it raised the body's self awareness and more lustful instincts. Though it didn't work like a charm every time, if taken within a few minutes of seeing someone of the opposite sex, or even the same sex, the effects were astronomical. In most cases it was used as an endorphin releaser that brought out the more hallucinogenic properties of the liquid drug, which couldn't be made into any other form or it would lose its potency, but it was highly addictive and nearly an impossible habit to break.

~Alice was glad she had only ever tried the drug once, never really getting too much more of a taste of it when it landed her in hot water with a few of the poison's dealers when she couldn't pay up in creds, so they took it out of her hide. She had marring scars still pinkening to white even more than three years later, and though she didn't make Solar Nectar a habit as Angel had, the dark haired woman hadn't been able to kick her chain smoking or drinking, two other bad habits. Though in retrospect, Alice's addictions were dwarfed in comparison to the blonde's.

~"Thanks," Alice warmly said, appreciative to have at least one friend in this dark shit hole where only criminals and their well-paid girlfriends, who pretended not to know about their boyfriends strippers habits, seemed to only dwell. It was rough to carve out a living here on Pluto, it tended to end up killing most who didn't have the stomach to tolerate daily muggings, rapes, and drunk and murdered dead bodies, though it was one of the few places that allowed people like Alice to live without any kind of identification.  
>She took her wads of creds and dumped them unceremoniously into her safe, knowing she didn't have long before <strong>it<strong>closed until tomorrow, but by then is would be too late. Only tonight would do, no other time was right.

~Angel chewed on her nails, not quite comprehending they were all ready gnawed down to the bleeding nubs, "where do you always go?" She managed to venture at length, watching the dark haired, lighter complected woman throwing her hair into a ponytail and pulling on some warm street clothes.

~Alice shrugged, "nowhere."

~"If it was nowhere, you wouldn't take off one night a month. The only night where the two moons are full." She scratched her sandy head and straightened her cashmere robe as Alice pulled on her white trench coat.

~"Call it… my werewolf night," Alice laughed jokingly, pretending to be a frightening monster by sarcastically flailing her arms and wiggling her fingers like claws.

~"Alice! I'm not a baby, where do you go?"

~Chuckling quietly, the older female went to her mini refrigerator and pulled out a bouquet of red Castle roses, a rare find on Pluto that Alice had to import monthly as no vegetation could grow here on Pluto unless in a greenhouse.

~"To visit a friend." There was a tiny, sad smile dancing at the corners of her lips and Angel bit back the rising questions that continued to plague her.

~"I'll talk to you later," Alice whispered, heading for the door and leaving the scantily clad stripper behind to chew on her nails nervously.

~Cold, freezing air tore into Alice's flesh, chilling her down to her very core as she took her first steps outside into the deserted snow riddled streets of Pluto's biggest town, Titan. The vast white littered the ground lightly, crunching softly underneath her fur-lined boots and she left footprints in her wake, being the only traces of life that night in the city off the platelets of Pluto's meridian.

~The glow from the club's only working neon sign blinked once or twice at Alice, as if to pathetically beg her to return. It read, "Loveless" and the name had weedled itself into the woman's mind after so many years of soulless stripping, taking off her clothes for the hordes of disgusting men who raped, pillaged, and murdered for a living.

~A sound made its way to Alice's ears and she spun around to meet the chilling gaze of a feral monster, grinning viciously and promising pain. "I've caught a little kitten, boys," the man muttered to his cohorts who melded from the darkness. They too had frighteningly wild smiles, forcing a disgusted shudder to crawl up the stripper's spine, but she calmly reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a tazer.

~"I wouldn't come any closer, I might hurt you guys," she threatened coolly, a dangerous smile crossing her perfect, rose-red lips just then.

~"Oh," the ring-leader remarked in amusement, "kitty's got claws." They all laughed arrogantly at the joke, hardly realizing how much pain they were about to be in.

~Reaching out for Alice, the leader growled when she side-stepped easily, smacking him away with the quickly placed hand holding her tazer. "I said don't. Now go slink away before I break you three." Her words only served to enrage the gang leader more and he snarled as he reached for her again.

~There was a brief second where Alice debated the intelligence behind her actions and words, but continued to fluidly avoid the grabbing hands that wanted to snatch and hurt her. She felt the slimy man's hands clutch at her scarf and yank, succeeding in catching her off-guard. Her roses tumbled from her grip, hitting the snowy pavement, amazingly undamaged despite their harsh fall, except for one single petal that slipped from it's home.

~Alice felt a wave of rage violently spasm up her spine and she moved her fist back, throwing it full-force into her captor's face. It was a crushing blow that shattered his nose and cheekbone, and the first of many raining down punches that Poker Alice hailed upon her overly stupid opponents. She found a distinct pleasure in the pools of blood staining the once pure white snow, droplets of spraying life essence flying through the air and splattering her face and clothes, but she hardly noticed.

~When at last everything went quiet, three motionless bodies were stretched out on the ice and snow covered ground. All unconscious, a solace away from the blinding pain they would likely be in had they been able to stay awake ad feel their bodies being crunched to pieces.

~"I warned you," Alice hissed, licking away the blood staining her knuckles from her own wounds. She looked down at her hands, seeing the showing prostatic metal implants just beneath the surface of broken dermis. Her fringing anger was ebbing away from her and she reached into her inner chest pocket to pull out a glistening, smoke gray handgun. These men were dangerous, ones who could just as easily have picked one of the lesser fighting inclined girls of the club and ripped them to shreds. They all needed to be dealt with accordingly.

~Alice went over to the first broken grunt, taking her aim at his forehead and cocking the hammer back. The shot rang off loud, disturbing no one who would care enough to do anything about it. The man's features had been just an irritating blur of indistinct facial construction she didn't care to carve to memory and was now just a dead pile of soon to be rotting flesh. She moved on from him without an emotion crossing her façade and stood over the second lackey, finding him equally as unresponsive as his comrade.  
>This one had been the first one downed of his other two poorly picked friends, different only because Alice took note of his young age, deducing him to not even be of legal age. Still just a pup in her eyes, barely even old enough to have felt a woman's wrapping warmth. It sickened her, "barely old enough to fuck and all ready a killer? Kid…" she whispered angrily, "you picked shitty role models." She sighed heavily, debating on the boy's options, but found herself unable to put a bullet into his pretty and young face, appeasing herself by putting cold steel into his legs instead. On this rock, if the cold didn't kill you and the gangs didn't send you out to the slaughter, being too poor to get prosthetics meant you were useless. But, it was better to be useless than dead in her mind.<p>

~She watched him jerk wildly and begin to scream, but ignored the sound to finally come to rest on the boss lying a few feet off to the side. He was the final man, the instigator, and was a sore-eyed mess, barely hanging onto life as he gurgled and struggled in vain to crawl away. His blood-encrusted eyes were swollen shit, blinding him, but he knew the sound of a gun being shot and the hammer clicking into place. He'd shot enough humans to remember that sound and carve it to memory. With his men dead and/or injured, there was no one around now to protect him, no one to use as a shield. He was all alone.

~Her footsteps were coming closer and that told him his seconds were numbered, that thought alone made him freeze in terror.

~"Because you're awake, I'll tell you what I tell every man I've ever killed." She knelt down beside the leader and forced him onto his back even as he fought her. "My name is Alice. I have been a gambler, a drinker, a smoker, a bounty hunter, and a stripper. This gun that I'm holding belongs to a dead man and I call her Judgment. She determines who lives and who dies. If she misfires, you live. If she doesn't," Alice paused to reload her prized firearm, the ensuing clicks made the bleeding man flinch and accidentally release his bladder. "You die." She aimed the handgun and cocked it, that frightening sound shocking him to his black-hearted core.

~"H-how many times has s-s-she misfired," he bubbled through the blood and tears, his mouth trembling with raw fear and a shred of hope fighting to show through.

~Alice laughed. "Never," and the gun went off...

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><p><strong><span>Author's Ending Note<span>** - As always, leave me some R&R to tell me what you think. This is just the first chapter and I have another one waiting in the wings whenever I hear how you guys liked this first chapter. Lots of love!

Lady A.R.R.O.


	2. Pluto Blues Pt 1

**Beginning Author's Note** – Nothing to say.

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><p><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Cowboy Bebop of any of its characters.

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><p><strong>Chapter 2<strong>  
><em>~Pluto Blues~<em>

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><p>~She felt her heart pounding as she passed the frozen, icicle gates. Black as pitch and twisted from ages of neglect and misuse, it was apparent in every sense of the word that this place that Alice entered into at her risk, was abandoned. Not even the juvenile gangs that defaced public property came here, finding the area's chilling aura almost too much to bear and Alice had to admit, she hated the suppressed feeling of pure, unbridled morbidity this graveyard seemed to exude.<p>

~But this place was perfect for what the stripper had in mind. It was one of the last small portions of Pluto that was completely engulfed in solace, sequestered away in a dull, dark corner of Titan like a small, neglected child left to fend for itself.

~No one spoke, nothing moved. Even the snow was still. It was deathly quiet here, a piercing reminder of the amount of respect the living were required to owe the dead in this taciturn place.

~The covered mounds that littered the cemetery were of varying shapes and sizes as Alice passed by them. A maze of snow and ice with no clear map of direction or defining marker to show her position, but the shadow-cloaked woman knew. She'd traversed this hallowed permafrost for years, taking extra care to be respectful of the dead and to eye the nearly invisible land indicators. Here, still had wandering souls that haunted their spiritual asylum and every twist could inevitably leave one running in circles until they froze to death… or worse.

~Alice spied her destination, smiling gently and slipping slowly to her knees as she reached out for a rounded mound. She brushed away its snowy covering, her fingers touching the frozen stone beneath. Even through her thick, fur-lined gloves, she still felt the frigid cold seep through the material and sink down deep into her flesh, but she pushed on until words showed through the ice and white.

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><p><em>~Faye stumbled through the wreckage, tripping over a few dead bodies, almost face planting into a puddle of drying blood. Everything seemed chillingly soundless, not even the injured living made a noise and the useless, female bounty hunter scrambled quickly to a flight of shaky, broken stairs.<em>

_~She flung herself up and reached the top as a few steps below her began to crumble, revealing to light the amount of damage one man could do if given motive, opportunity, and enough firepower. A thought streaked through Faye as she watched the crumbling disintegration of more stairs. This much destruction didn't come without a price and a flustering of very female emotions tidal waved up the woman's spine as she forced herself to ignore all else and dart down the broken and bloodied corridors._

_~Her body raced headlong down an endless hallway, lined with red and black wallpaper décor. The Chinese artifacts along the wall were mostly in disrepair or completely annihilated, giving to light the horrors they'd witnessed. More bodies littered the red carpet here, every dozen or so dead was thrown together with maybe one or two of the living, but without a promise of help they too would end up like their soulless bretheren._

'Be all right,'_ Faye's mind screamed out as she burst through an ornately carved doorway, eyes searching frantically for another passageway to follow, but her frightened pupils fell on a blue suit and flash of fluffy green._

_~"Spike!" She shrieked and clamored up the debris-filled stairs to the fallen bounty hunter's side. An array of emotions burst inside her then, coursing so quickly through her foggy brain that she couldn't catch even one of them. The amount of terror gripping her heart had it fluttering dangerously within her chest, beating so fast it threatened to tear from her ribcage and bleed out on the ground._

_~His green locks were grimy with dried blood and it stuck together in clumps about his temples and forehead. Both his eyes stared unseeingly up at the ceiling, the left one taking on an entirely soulless appearance while his right mechanically spun in its socket, struggling to focus blindly for a brain that no longer worked._

_~"No," she breathed out, picking up his head and gently cradling it into her lap. Tears sprang to her eyes and poured down her cheeks, dribbling off her jawbone and chin with reckless abandon. "You can't be dead, it's not fair." Her voice was coming out in halting gasps as she struggled to hold what was left of the man she had grown a strange attachment to._

_~Torrents of pooling blood beneath the man had begun to stain Faye's clothes, causing the red slickened ground to slip from under her. She crashed to the stairs as a huge wave of crushing sadness and depression racked her small body, leaving her just a shivering mass of sobbing hurts that cut so deep it threatened to snuff her out._

_~"I… can't see… anymore," a gurgled voice made its way to Faye's ears and her head shot up, eyes instantly focusing on the bounty hunter._

_~"Oh God, Spike!" She choked, moving hair away from his face to get a better look, "I'll call Jet, he'll—"_

_~"No." His voice sounded so final it took on an almost painful arrogance, "let it… be… Faye. I'm done."_

_~She clutched to him tightly, rage boiling up from the pit of her stomach, "No, Spike! You're not allowed to die!"_

_~"Shut up… I don't have—" he began to cough, a choking sound that cut him off, nearly gagging out the rest of his life essence. More blood sputtered through his lips, splattering Faye's yellow outfit. His wounds that had stopped bleeding prior were opened a new, his lower abdomen suddenly gushing blood._

_~Faye tore off her red jacket, gently struggling to slow the leak of Spike's life-force, but as her fingers touched his gushing gut, a strong, shaky hand grabbed her and froze her motionless. _

_~"Leave it," he whispered, "I found out… what I needed to." For once, in all the time she had spent with Spike Spiegal , he focused solely on her. There was nothing and no one else on his mind save one foul-mouthed, hot-tempered, chain-smoking, gambling bounty hunter. Not even the ever haunting Julia shared the spotlight with her, it was all for Faye Valentine._

_~There was a tearful pleading her the woman's gaze that he didn't seem to register and she leaned over him, momentarily watching as he wheezed and contemplated the final moments of his sad, pitiful existence._

_~"Don't go," she begged, feeling weak and helpless against the onslaught of agonizing emotions tearing her insides apart._

_~"Faye…" he caught her attention, voice so low it was barely a breath and she had to lean in close to hear him. "These eyes can't see anything anymore… No more past or present… Take my gun and bury me in the ground." He took what remained of his waning strength and snatched up her collar, yanking her down on him. In his last moments, he took the last bits of himself from Faye, instilling in her a heavy ache that she never let go of, allowing the fluffy, green-haired, ex-mafia mobster kiss her bruisingly before the breath left him and his eyes went dead._

_~She cradled his head, hugging herself to his chest as she grabbed fistfuls of his bloody shirt. Her racking sobs echoed throughout the mostly empty room until two strong, gentle hands encircled her waist and pulled her away from him._

_~"Let me go!" She screamed, flailing and clawing at her jailor, but the arms were insistent, holding her tightly to a muscular chest._

_~"Hush," a masculine voice murmured, "let us take care of him now. You've sent him off, we'll make sure he's put to rest."_

_~Faye looked up into the bold, fierce eyes of some nameless man she didn't know, but nonetheless relaxed into his grip as he pulled her from the bloody corpse. Beside Faye, three other men with stern faces and hardened expressions made of stone came to stand beside Spike. They each had dark red armbands of the Red Dragon Crime Syndicate, their obvious loyalties barely registering in Faye's scrambled mind._

_~"Sir, what do we do with his gun?" The favorite black Jericho 941 was still clutched in Spike's right hand and the woman made a whimpering sound from behind them, only barely catching their attention._

_~"Give it to the woman, he gave it to her," the one in charge said as he continued his gentle hushing on Faye, his heavily callused fingers massaging her upper arms in order to keep her calm._

_~A grunt with glazed over brown eyes tenderly removed the gun from Spike's grasp and presently deposited it into Faye's hands before he went back to the corpse's side. He was carefully aiding a companion in lifting the fuzzy maned monkey onto a stretcher, covering the body with a white sheet. The perfect colored material soaked up the blood and changed red, effectively reducing whatever shambled bits of Faye's mind were left, to suddenly snap. She ripped herself away from this stranger's clutches, dropping the lethal weapon without a moment's forethought as to its capabilities, and tore across the room to the lifeless body of her fallen comrade._

_~"He told me to bury him! I want to do it!" her hysterical shrieks echoed throughout the compound and caused a pause to all still living. It was the morbid cries of an injured she-wolf howling loud her grievances over a lost mate._

_~"Jackson," someone called and the boss grunt turned to see an ancient man with snake-like eyes and a liver-spotted, bald head. He was one of the elders, a member of the old, retired syndicate masters who aided in the control where Vicious' hands had been unable to reach._

_~"Yes, sir," Jackson stood at attention, saluting his superior._

_~"Take the bodies and put them out to dry." One of the old man's gnarled hands drew away from his elaborately designed cane and patted the young mobster's chest, winking at him with an evil smile. It caused a disgusted shiver to work its way up Jackson's back and goose flesh to break out on his arms. This wretched old geezer was pure evil._

_~Faye was still bawling when someone yanked her off Spike and took her away. The grunt boss, Jackson struggled valiantly to hold onto his captive's body, while her nearly inhuman strength dwindled to nothing and she fell unconscious._

_~"I love you…" She breathed out and the blackness took her over completely._

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><p>~"Hey, Spike," Alice murmured, picking up the stone vase and shaking it free of frozen snow and ice. The skeletons of her last bouquet fell to the earth, scattered and old from the freeze as she replaced the vase with her new offering.<p>

~"I'm sorry I'm late, but you know the club," she laughed shortly and leaned forward, brushing her lips against the frozen stone base. It was a swift kiss, just a peck if it had to be called anything and within a moment, Alice had moved from Spike's grave to the mound beside it, pushing aside more icy whiteness.

~The second tombstone finally cleared away and Alice read it quietly aloud, brushing her covered fingertips over the engraved lettering, "Faye Valentine." There weren't dates on either stone-head, but it wasn't needed, Alice knew when both people had died. Stating the obvious was just an unnecessary expense.

~"The day you died, I died," she whispered softly, a new sprinkling of snow falling to dust the headstones and blood red roses. Someone special to her heart had said that before and it seemed a fitting saying at a moment like this, its meaning having chiseled itself into the stripper's soul ages ago now.

~Alice kissed the tips of her fingers and touched both graves, waving a silently solemn goodbye before turning to head home. She tightened her coat around her as a light wind kicked up, blowing snow into her all ready freezing face, but the woman hardly noticed as the dancing stories of one notorious Spike Spiegal and infamous Faye Valentine pranced around in her head.

~The woman passed by the black front gates, unaware of the watching eyes from a shadowed figure, standing motionless just a few yards off. He let out a quiet sigh, a cloud of smoky, white breath billowing out from between a pair of thin lips. The air tumbled about his head for only a second, swirling amidst the harsh breeze of Pluto's unforgiving terrain before dissipating off into nothingness of space.

~"I found the woman," a distinctly male voice said into a cellular device, listening in rapt interest for the orders from the other end. Not a moment later, the line when dead and the man set out to his mission, bounding off into the desolate night.

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><p>Author's Ending Note - R&amp;R<p> 


	3. Pluto Blues Pt 2

Author's Beginning Note – I know everyone is probably not happy about how short last chapter was, but I can assure you this one will be much longer. Thank you and enjoy.

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><p>Disclaimer: I don't own Cowboy Bebop or any of its characters.<p>

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><p><strong>Chapter 3<strong>  
><strong>Pluto Blues Pt. 2<strong>

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><p>~Alice pulled out a her keys and shakily unlocked her door, the cold air having finally gotten to her, sinking beneath her warm jacket to the tender skin and nerves hiding on the underside. She swung open the heavy, iron door without much effort and nearly stumbled inside as the icy wind from outside snuck passed her.<p>

~The door shut hard, rattling the metal walls of her apartment and as much as she knew this place wasn't a typical house, as it was simply a renovated office building, it was the only place she could call home. That and she knew that its security system–a high-tech wonder that had been set up ages ago by an old friend—wouldn't allow any unexpected visitors in. It was the perfect place for a well-known stripper to hideout from the horny criminal populace of Pluto.

~Silence engulfed the young woman, as did the all-encompassing darkness, but a low sound quickly made its way to Alice's ears and she smilingly knelt down to pick up a happy-go-lucky ball of furry fuzz just as it leapt into her loving grasp.

~"Black-Jack!" She giggled loudly, stumbling around for the light switch at her left. When the bulb above her flickered on, slowly warming up to full brilliance, Alice's deep green eyes—a gift from her mother— came to rest on the runty looking Corgi dog she'd had for about four years now.

~The dog barked cutely and nuzzled his way deeper into Alice's chest, trying to bury his nose between her supple, large breasts. Even dogs can be perverts and this one wasn't an exception.

~"You know," Alice started, "I don't think your momma would approve of being as big a pervert as you are." She petted his soft head a few more times before presently depositing him on the ground at her feet and snatching up her collar. She tore free of the choking jacket and threw it haphazardly across the room where it landed on her tattered couch before slipping with a rustling sound to the floor.

~Black-Jack rushed around his master's feet excitedly, yipping loudly like his life depended on it. He jetted off towards his makeshift bed down the hall, not bothering to watch as Alice stripped down to her bare body.

~When she was naked as the day she was born, she made her way deeper into the converted apartment building, stopping only to pick up a towel from a pile of unwashed laundry as she jammed her way towards the bathroom.

~"Computer," she heard the voice activated monitor on her desk beep a few tones in response, "play something… somber." The machine registered the command and rolled through a series of old-age disks in search of the one it had been programmed to play. It clicked audibly and finally found the correct floppy, pushing the CD forward into the slot as a soft devil's harp began to play. A soft, sad tune roared to life from the speakers and Alice sauntered down the long, dusty corridor without a word, quietly humming to herself a song from ages past. The haunting echo of the devil's chord struck deep and loud within the confines of the apartment, playing a broken melody of mournful notes sadder than any normal jazz musician could touch on. This was the blues, sad and true.

~Alice leaned her head up against the shower's wall, pressing her porcelain-fleshed forehead into the tiles as a cascade of steaming water dribbled down her body with lazy abandon. She sighed deep and lifted her hands, palms out to the still cold overlay, "sometimes… it's lonely." Her words weren't to anyone in particular, but they held some meaning, only meant to be heard by the one who was supposed to hear them.

~The long minutes dredged on into hours and finally when Alice felt she had fully cleansed herself both of her own grime and of the filthy gazes of her paying customers, she trudged from the tub, wrapping her thick towel about her waist. Exhaustion was a constant expression on her face in the past few years, dark bags under her eyes having formed some time after leaving the past of hers broken and buried. She'd left a lot of things behind since arriving here on Pluto, one of them being her restful sleep, the other likely being her sanity.

~Her computer continued to thumb through music as she entered back into the living room, passing by the normally unused kitchen without a passing thought about food and calmly flopping her body onto her threadbare sofa. The Corgi dog, Black-Jack had made himself comfortably at home in his mistress' absence, taking to the couch's armrest while no one was looking quite easily. He dozed happily, those small legs kicking as he chased his dreamscape rabbits amidst a green pasture of cool, lush grass, every now and again a tiny yip of pleasure escaping his muzzle when he caught said rabbit. There was nothing this dog loved more than the imaginary huntings of animals he'd only seen in his head.

~Alice smiled at the scene and turned her head towards the large docking windows that lead into her empty backyard. Whoever had designed the layout of this rundown, shabby, falling apart building had a sick sense of architecture mixed with either an inability to see the icy wasteland outside, or clear disregard for it. Since having moved into this place, the dark-haired, china-doll skinned goddess had spent a good deal of her hard-earned credits in replacing the windows with reinforced space glass, as well as barred them for her own personal safety. It was all merely a precautionary method in keeping undesirables out and since their installation, they had served their purpose on multiple occasions. Although, about three years back Alice had a security system put in for the more_ hardy_ of her undesired guests after an incident with a mob boss who was upset over the stripper's lack of _ gratitude_ for his less than generous dancing tip. The man had come to collect a more _touchable_ bounty and ended up leaving the apartment in a body bag when his fat fingers grabbed more than he was allowed.

~Even Black-Jack had gotten a few good bites in before a bullet was squarely set between his thick uni-brow and at times, Alice thought she had been too nice in giving the louse a quick death. He deserved far worse, but had all ready bled too much on the woman's plush, champagne colored carpet when a fork got lodged in his eye by_ accident_.

~Alice sighed heavily, leaning her head over the back of the couch to watch the world upside down for a few moments, though she quickly felt the oncoming of a head rush and righted herself before she got too disoriented. She slowly got to her feet, pulling off her towel and tossing it to the laundry basket nearby, snatching up the warm edge of her quilt to wrap about herself.

~The wind outside had begun to kick up now, turning from a light, frostbiting breeze, so a full blown howling as snow and ice shards were lifted into the galling storm and flung in every which way. A blizzard had started again, a continuation of the night before's near endless onslaught which had stopped before third-night.

~Days and nights here on Pluto weren't like Earth's daily rotations. It took almost six twenty-four hour time periods to make one full turn on the dinky, ice ball planet, leading the populace who knew the frigid place well to call each Earth day that ticked by on the proverbial spacial clock, a _night_. There was one-night, two-night, three-night… and so on and so forth, all the way up to six-night. Although, it hardly mattered anyway, the far-off distant rays of the day-warming sun couldn't have permeated this far out into the solar-system anyway. Without the fake lights of the bio-dome, this planet would have been not only pitch black, but also eerily silent. There was no way for humans to live out here without the adaptations made from their frightening intelligence, yet there were times when Alice debated severely if inhabiting other planets, like the humans owned space itself, was such a good idea.

~Back in the day, before space ships had really begun to explore, before people had inhabited the moon, Mars, and even Venus. There was just Earth and the millions of watching humanoid life forms that stared up in the vastly endless beyond, imagining the world without its limitations of gravity, breathable air, or its preordained boundaries. What people wanted was the unattainable dream of becoming more than they really were, to be bigger chess pieces in life than they really had need for, it was likely only a matter of time before something went wrong with that kind of thinking.

~Alice shivered involuntarily, tightening her choking hold on the blanket's falling edges. She glanced away from the window that had entranced her thoughts towards the inviting back bedroom, glowing just a few feet down the hallway.

~"Black-Jack," she ordered gently, the dog leaping to attention, even through his interrupted, sleep-filled haze. He bounded to the floor from the couch and came racing to his mistress' side, head and body bobbing like some comically uncoordinated, cartoon canine, before jumping into Alice's arms. The woman laughed shortly, struggling to hold onto the wiggly dog and her quilt as he tried to lick her face, both heading towards the alluring appeal of a warm bed piled high with soft blankets and fluffy pillows.

~Lightly throwing her over-spoiled puppy onto the bedspread, Alice nearly fell into it, clinging tight to a blossom-scented pillow and climbing beneath the protective coverings. She lifted her head up only enough to make a clear command towards the well-lit living room and shouted down the hall, "good-night, computer!"

~The mechanical machine whirled and whistled momentarily, shutting down as per the spoken command. First went the sad-noted music, second came the lights and connecting lamps, lastly went the computer itself, throwing the warehouse turned apartment building into a cave of infinite darkness.

~Alice's head floated back down to her dream-soft pillow, pulling it tighter to her face. Sleep would come easy tonight, her earlier stresses had been assuaged by visiting the stories of years gone passed, and a calming silence could now engulf her body and mind. Her mind floated gently on the foaming waves of beautiful dreams, the tender embrace of inner peace lapping at the edges of her mind and she drifted off to a time when she could smile without the pain of tears hiding behind her green irises.

~An alarm-clock blared loud in Alice's ear and the still tired woman nearly tore the offending object from the wall to throw it across the room before he mind fully had a chance to wake up. Her eyelids opened sluggishly, her thickly spread eyelashes gripping tight to the last reminiscing moments of magic dreams and the woman took a slow mental note of the time. It was noon on fourth-night, a low haze of fake light was struggling to peek through the window of her bedroom and the woman just wanted so badly to turn over and go back to sleep, but an annoying dog was dancing on the floor, begging to be let out.

~Black-Jack barked in a hushed tone, trying to wake up his mistress gently. He twirled and danced, spun in wild circles like some crazy mutt and lifted himself onto his hind legs. He had to pee, this whole ritualistic liturgy of energy was practiced every morning and every evening, the only difference today was Alice hadn't the desire nor interest to get up.

~The small canine repeated his little routine again and again, barking louder at each close, eventually only succeeding in gaining the woman's frustration, to which the dog was answered with a rustle of black and red satin sheets. At first, the animal assumed he had won the battle and raced off down the hall to scratch excitedly on the front door, but Black-Jack quickly figured out he'd been horrendously duped. His mistress had simply turned over in her lackluster effort to ignore her pet, leading the runt dog find some other way to awaken his dozing princess.

~Alice was barely grasping the hem of her dream world, feeling the magical fingers of unconsciousness massaging the exhausted portions of her brain, when something was pulled down across her face and over her chest. There was a silent, motionless moment where the woman froze amidst her sleepy reverie to question the strange sensation, though fell back to her dreamy wanderings when nothing else happened.

~Slowly, a strange coldness danced over Alice's body, crawling up from her toes to her legs and thighs, reaching her belly and chest, where it sat for a moment even as her lower extremities grew ever more frigid. Finally, broken of her tired spell, Alice flung herself up into a sitting position growling like some rabid dog and looked down to find Black-Jack sitting at the foot of her bed with a near canine grin plastered to his tan and black snout. Her blanket was gone, stolen away like a thief in the night and all that was left to show for it was a highly intelligent pet simply waiting for the fruits of his labor to come to fruition.

~The animal barked shortly, having gained at long last his mistress' attention before bounding off down the hallway towards the door. He sat next to the freezing iron growing with perspiration in the heat of the living room, listening to the sounds of Alice cursing up a storm and struggling to find some warm clothes. She must've fallen from the bed because a low thump echoed throughout the building from her room and suddenly, a dark-haired woman flung herself into hallway, dressed in her fur coak and a pair of thick sweat pants.

~"I swear to God, dog. One of these days, I'm going to kill you," she threatened and stomped loudly towards the door, snatching up her heeled boots. She hopped around madly, shoving her foot inside one and moving to the other when Black-Jack's ears suddenly perked up and he barked loudly at the door.

~There was a long moment of exasperated confusion where Alice tried to figure out what had made the dog go crazy. She watched him run in circles, barking loudly, run from the door across her couch and then back towards the door. He had officially gone nuts and it was perhaps only slightly hilarious.

~Alice chuckled and went to the door, unlatching the locks and opening the gateway to the outside. She laughed when he rushed passed her in a whiz of fur, plopping out into the too tall snow. The comical scene made her break out into loud laughter as the ball of fluff bounded in and out of view on tiny, stubbly legs not made for gazelle leaping. But somehow, someway Black-Jack made it through her snow filled yard and bee-lined for his targeted destination just out of sight of his mistress.

~There was a loud yelp, more human than dog and in Alice's hastened rush to see what had happened, the woman lost her footing in the more than a couple feet deep snow and went flailing to the ground in the most clumsy was possible a stripper like her had ever managed. She squealed something fierce as the snow engulfed her and in the moments that followed she fell face first into the tangled web of Fate's red thread.

~"Are you all right, ma'am?" A rather muffled voice caught Alice's attention from above her and she struggled in vain to spin onto her back, although her overly large, bulky, fur coat did nothing to aid her in the process. She looked up and found the rather disconcerting face of a ski-masked man seemed to fill her entire vision. There was a long moment of silence where the two just stared at each other, emerald into mahogany, and something odd made Alice's heart flutter a beat or two, but she shoved it away without a second thought.

~"I said, are you—"

~"I heard you," Alice interrupted, slightly perturbed that the man didn't reach out a hand to help her up and she clumsily had to stumble to her feet on her own. She huffed lowly and tried to shake her coat free of some of the clinging snow, glancing around at their feet for a missing pet.

~Black-Jack yipped happily and came bounding from around a corner with his pink tongue lolling out of his mouth as he panted. He came to stand beside his mistress and the woman eyed him angrily for a long time before lifting her eyes back to this new found stranger.

~"This yard is private property, you'll have to excuse me if I tell you to go the hell away."

~The ski-masked mystery man cocked his head to the side slightly, somehow in a cute manner, as if he truly didn't understand and Alice would have said more, edging onto to sounding more forceful in her demand that he leave when the male spoke, "I'm moving in over there." He pointed to a small building shoved into the back of this industrial lot, about several hundred feet away.

~It was true, it looked as if someone was moving things around. A small, dark blue cruiser ship sat in front of the small, cramped building while boxes of things, most likely the man's personal stuff was strewn about the yard.

~"Oh," Alice whispered lowly, disbelieving anyone would want to live in this area, let alone have the kind of money it took to convert one of these decrepit buildings into a sort of living conditions. She turned back to look at him and gave the man a once over, taking note the kind of person he might be and if she should be on her guard.

~He was taller than her, probably over six feet if not right at it, and aside from being athletically thin, there wasn't much Alice could tell about the man. His dark ski-mask, heavy leather pilot jacket and thick black pants kept her from really making any kind of distinguishing first impression. To her, he seemed nothing more than a plainly dressed vagabond looking for work like any other man she _entertained_ at the nightclub.

~When the stripper noticed the silence had dredged on far too long to be normal, and she realized he _knew_ she had been staring, she cleared her throat. "Sorry, I didn't think I'd ever have _neighbors_," her voice dripped with an unusual amount of venom that wasn't entirely nice, but Alice felt as if her personal living area had been invaded by this man's mysterious presence. This was supposed to be a safe place, her haven away from the disgusting molesters, murderers, and rapists of Pluto's drudgery and here was someone coming to ruin the fabric of that neatly woven blanket of security. It irritated her if only slightly.

~The man said nothing, merely continued to stare at Alice with a strange, unreadable expression hiding deep within his eyes. Those eyes were entrancing familiar. They drew Alice in until she couldn't breathe and she had to look away or she would start panting.

~"Well, anyway. Sorry Black-Jack wasn't as cordial as he should have been. He's just guarding his territory." She realized her coat had fallen open just slightly, letting the cold in as well as the ability for shifting eyes to take an eyeful glance at a pair of beautifully sculpted breasts if only just a little. She wrenched the coat together, a pinkening blush crossing her cheeks and she spun on her booted heels, fleeing the man's presence before he decided a more_ physical_ examination of her person was required.

~Underneath the black, woolen mask, the man grinned if only slightly and went back to his morning walk. He pulled out a pack of smokes from his pocket, jerking the pack an inch to bump up the filtered side of a cigarette. His lips wrapped around the tanned filter and he pulled it out with practiced ease, putting the pack away to pull out his lighter and lit the cancer stick's opposite end. The ember burned brightly and smoldered in the heavy air of the frosty morning. It was already turning out to be an interesting day.

~"What the hell, Black-Jack!" Alice muttered, finally getting the small Corgi back into the house. Sometimes she debated with herself, wondering why she kept the stupid mutt around, but then remembered because it was a favor to an old friend and growled lowly. "Stupid dog." She kicked off her shoes and went racing for the shower, a warm reprieve to the frigid ordeal she had just been put through.

~She moaned grudgingly after a good, long few moments of hot water pounded down upon her back, when the annoying sound of her call-com cellphone began ringing in the living room. It must have been work and she would be damned if she got yelled at for not being on call when her boss had required it of all of his dancers.

~Yanking herself from the wondrous warmth, she toweled off and wrapped it around her nakedness by simple habit, not like she was trying to hide anything. She traipsed to the living room and snatched up her phone from the desk, where it seemed to have fallen out of her purse during the night, probably Black-Jack running across the table's surface throughout the night.

~"Hello?" Alice muttered, after having punched in the club's number and the resident receptionist, Raina answered the phone. "It's Alice, what do you want?"

~Raina cleared her throat, sounding more haggard than she normally did. Her voice was like ground sandpaper, caused from too many years of cigarettes and smokeable drugs, warping her voice box into a woman's thirty years her senior with a bad case of emphysema. "Boss says he's holding auditions for new recruits tonight. You gotta be there to help choose the new meat."

~"Why? I thought we were full?"

~"Angel quit last night," Raina didn't add anything more and a strange feeling swam in Alice's gut. Something sounded fishy about it and she needed to know more.

~"What are you talking about? I just saw her last night and she didn't say anything about quitting."

~"That's what I was told, sweetcheeks. Just make sure you're here tonight at fourth moon rising." The line then went dead as Raina hung up without saying goodbye or anything more, leading the swimming feeling in Alice's stomach to grow bigger.

~Angel didn't say a word about wanting to quit last night. In fact, she sounded almost morbidly happy to still have a job, considering she had skipped out when she could barely function after a few bouts of her drug habit had goten out of hand. It was just oddly fishy and Alice wasn't sure how to go about it from here, she had to go see the girl and figure out what was up.

~Chewing on her fingernail, Alice dialed up the blonde stripper's number, holding the receiver to her ear and waiting for the girl on the opposite end to pick up. It rang four times… five times… six times… Finally, Alice hung up, knowing the stripper didn't have an answering machine, and she suddenly feared the worst.

~"Get dressed, Black-Jack, we're going out." She walked to her bedroom to pull out some warm clothes, settling on a thick pair of black pants that clung tightly to her shapely legs, and a white angora sweater that hung slightly off her right shoulder, showing off the black lacey bra strap underneath. It was a pretty outfit she would finish off with her warm, downy parka for added warmth and a pair of white boots she hadn't the heart to get rid of after she'd arrived here on Pluto. They were old and worn, but perfectly useable, especially out here in the snow.

~She returned to the living room and found her energetic dog crawling into his red and black checkered sweater. He'd gotten stuck halfway in and was struggling fiercely to free himself, but without opposable thumbs, the task was near impossible. She finished him off and grabbed his leash, hooking him on it and racing out the door.

~Angel's house was in the more rotten side of Pluto's ghetto, just one apartment building surrounded on all sides by the worst of the worst riffraff from all the planets combined. It was a wonder the young woman hadn't gotten raped, or worse… killed. But she was a bubbly girl and most everyone who met her was instantly likened to her, maybe that was why she faired so well in this place. Plus, the rent was cheap and the heating bill wasn't that much.

~Alice passed a few unsavory looking characters who eyeballed her rather disgustingly, but she didn't want to cause a scene here and ignored the nasty looks without much thought. Aside from just leering a little bit too hard, they hadn't actually done anything wrong.

~She reached the right door and knocked lightly, "Angel! Angel, it's me. Open the door please." She waited for a response, but when none came she knocked again, louder this time, practically banging down the metallic portal. Still, when no answer came, she tried the knob, turning it slowly and watching with vigilant eyes as it creaked open.

~"I'm coming in, Angel!" She stepped into the small, darkened apartment, hissing at Black-Jack when the little Corgi pup yanked his leash from Alice's hands and went tearing off without his master. "Dammit, dog!" She tore off after him without too much forethought as to closing the door.

~From the bedroom, Black-Jack whimpered, he'd found someone, and Alice made her way down the hall, tripping over piles of dirty laundry and oddball knickknacks she couldn't even make out in the darkness. "Angel, you need a maid!" She called, more to herself then to the blonde and stumbled into the girl's room at long last.

~"You better be dead or hurt to make me worry… like…this…" Alice froze in mid-trip, holding herself up against a vanity dresser to keep from falling to the floor. On the bed, lying motionlessly was a lump of flesh that could barely even be called a human being anymore. Blonde hair lay strewn wildly, as if having not been brushed in ages, and the placement of limbs looked too uncomfortable to have simply fallen asleep.

~The dog nuzzled into the girl's side with his wet black nose, whimpering lowly before setting his furry head on the lifeless thigh. He knew what Alice was still coming to grips with.

~"No," the dark-haired woman denied, drawing closer as tears filled her eyes. "Not you." She reached out haltingly and touched Angel's cold, porcelain cheek lovingly, like a mourning sister. Her eyes scanned down and found an empty syringe with a few shimmering drops of amber colored liquid, still sticking in the vein of the girl's arm and Alice deflated even more.

~"What the hell were you thinking, Angel? You're so stupid," she fell to her knees and gripped to the dead stripper's hand, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes before she could stop them. Her only friend, the only person on this damn rock besides her stupid dog that she cared about was now as lifeless and cold as the buried corpses in the graveyard.

~Moments ticked by and Alice continued to cry, feeling Black-Jack come to lay his head gently on his master's leg to offer even a tiny bit of solace. But it didn't matter, a wave of rage filled the woman and she snatched up the syringe, pelting it across the room and into a wall. The object didn't break, merely clunked as its flight was impeded and fell harmlessly to the floor with a soft, barely audible rustle.

~Alice crawled backwards until her back hit the vanity dresser and she pulled her knees to her chest, hugging them tight and crying herself out until she couldn't cry anymore.

~She looked up at the dead young woman, knowing there wouldn't be any family to speak of to come looking for her, and without a type of police force to call, Alice knew the only thing that could be done was to call Titan's only gravedigger and have Angel cleaned up and buried as she deserved.

~The call had been hard, having taken a few false starts and a couple losses of voice until she finally got out the address and the woman's name to be taken away. Doctor Henry Leeser was a relatively kind man if just a little bit odd. He immediately heard Alice's distress and knowing her well enough for a first name basis, remarked he had one other body to clean up before he could make it to Angel's flat, but that he would be there as soon as was possible. Alice thanked him and waited, leaning against the apartment building's black, iron balcony railing until the doctor could arrive. She wasn't going to leave until Angel was looked after, the young blonde deserved that much.

~The cold permeated Alice's coat, through her clothes and down to her core, but she ignored it, drawing the collar up more and trying to keep her normally stoic composure, even against the rising sob that threatened to come up every few seconds.

~Black-Jack kept quiet, his intelligent doggy brain telling him to be patient no matter what. His mistress was suffering and aggravating her with his antics would only lead to further disappointment and the little dog didn't want that.

~An hour passed, than two. People came and went, some looking her over, some ignoring Alice's very existence. A man had tried to say something to her, but the stripper's icy demeanor seemed to scare him off before he got more than a word out edgewise.

~Every time a door opened Alice had some small, nearly microscopic hope that Angel would come traipsing through her door and look surprised by Alice's presence, but every time those hopes were dashed when it was some unknown person.

~Three hours later, Doctor Leeser showed up with his black bag in tow and a young gentleman that Alice could only describe as greasy, trailing behind.

~"This is my associate, Bernard Wallace, Alice. He's going to help me take care of your friend." The doctor was always cordial and nice, leading the stripper to wonder what he'd done to end up on this rock.

~She nodded, "I have to get to work. Send me a bill." She started to walk away, Black-Jack right beside her when a hand touched her shoulder.

~"Don't worry about the payment. You've done enough for me in the past." He was referring to the couple times Alice had shown up at his business and chased off some goons who were trying to steal his equipment for whatever fucked up reason they needed it for, and since Doctor Leeser had always owed the woman. "But I need to know what you want me to do with her." He was good at treating the dead like still living human beings, even if they were little more than lumps of flesh.

~"Put her beside Faye and Spike. She'll have some friends then." Alice pulled away from Leeser and crammed her hands into her pockets, unable to say anything more or she would break down into tears and that was the last thing she needed to do right before work.

~"I'll make her beautiful," the doctor murmured and shooed his apprentice off to begin work.

~Ricky had a disgusting demeanor about him that always seemed to put women on edge, and even a few years of working the strip joint, Alice had yet to manage to stifle that disgust. She had cleaned up her face and reapplied her makeup until she looked presentable and took a seat beside the fat man that took her dancing fees.

~"Most of these bitches are from Embyr," he began, Embyr being the one of three other cities on Pluto, "they're green and fuckin' stupid as all hell, but one of them's got some really big tits. They're real too." He waved to Raina, his go-to-bitch for everything in this joint and had the DJ start some music.

~"The first girl says her name is Betsy," Raina muttered, taking a seat on the other side of Ricky, handing the man her profile. "She's a runner, but she doesn't have any addictions and she's got good references from Silar's place."

~"Fuck Silar," Ricky growled out and shooed the girl off stage before she'd even begun her dance.

~The music started again a moment later and the next girl came out, another fake blonde with fake boobs that were so poorly done, the surgery scars could be seen from the audience. Her profile was thrown away before she could even dance either. This routine went on for about three more girls before Alice finally piped up angrily, "Ricky, I can't judge them, if they don't even dance. So shut up and do this right."

~For a second, Ricky glared at his star attraction like she'd bit his dick just a little bit too hard giving head and sighed heavily, "you're in a bitchy mood today."

~"You know Angel's dead right?" Alice hissed out through narrowed eyes, trying to look for some kind of forethought knowledge in her boss' face. She wanted to know if he'd known anything about it. It wasn't a secret that he banged her once in awhile so she could have some extra hours.

~Ricky looked genuinely—as genuinely as a fat man in a button up Hawaiian shirt could look—surprised by the information. "She left last night after you clocked off and said somethin' about needin' to go to the store and she wasn't comin' back. Whatever the fuck that means."

~Sensing no hidden meaning or underlying lies in his tone, Alice let it go and motioned for the DJ to start the next number. She waited for the intro to finish and from behind the red satin curtains came a young woman only a year or two younger than Alice herself, likely the woman Ricky had mentioned earlier. He had been right, she had a large pair of completely real breasts, that stood out perky and taut from underneath the gossamer mesh of her light pink teddy. That wasn't what surprised Alice the most, what stood out was the very light chocolate brown color of her skin. She was likely some mixture of black and Indian, and very possibly was one of the most beautiful women Alice had ever seen.

~The woman's skin glistened lightly with beads of growing perspiration as she mounted the pole, her fluid body movements suggesting she had done this for years. She had dancer's legs, long and built strong, wrapping around the golden post and swinging her around. Her body was pretty, long like her legs and muscled in all the right spots a woman should be, but it was her face that was most striking. The woman had a pixie look about her that made her look delectably innocent, quite nearly virginal, a drastic difference to Alice's own dark and haughty appearance that promised rough kisses and nails scrapped down skin.

~"What's her name?" Alice mumbled out, watching with rapt interest, eyes never leaving the stage.

~Raina pushed her glasses further up the bridge of her nose and looked over the profile page on her laptop, "Faiden. There's nothing on her, just her name."

~Ricky lifted his hand to stop the music and waddled to his feet, grinning disgustingly, "girl, you're hired. Can you start tonight?"

~Faiden gave a tiny, half smile. She looked shy and if Alice was right, there was the tiniest splash of freckles that showed up on the cheeks when she blushed, but her skin was just a shade too dark to see perfectly in this light. "I would love to." Even her voice evoked something sensual, almost forcing a heated response from the nether regions of anyone who listened. Faiden—for lack of a better word—was perfect.

~"Great!" Ricky boomed and turned to Raina, "tell all the other bitches to go home. I got me another Poker Alice!" He sounded so ecstatic and was about to hobble out of the stage room when his secretary cleared her throat.

~"What?" He yelled, turning sluggishly and beside Raina was a tall man dressed in warm clothes and a ski mask, the very same man Alice had run into only that morning. "Tell the fucker we ain't open yet." Ricky waved him off and draped his arm about Faiden's waist, leading her towards his office where Alice was sure the girl might lose more than just some of her virginal appeal.

~"Sir, this is the new bouncer. The one with the _connections_." Raina scribbled something out on her computer clipboard and returned her gaze back on the boss.

~"Yeah, yeah, whatever. I've got some business to attend to, let Alice make the introductions."

~Rolling her eyes, Alice looked to Raina and then to the man that towered over the small, mid forties woman. Before she could argue, the woman's phone rang and she answered it in her gruff, monotone greeting and was gone in a flash.

~"Fuck them," Alice hissed and returned her attention to the new annoyance in her life. She raised a hand to pinch the bridge of her nose as the rising irritation threatened to drive her insane. There was a multitude of things she had to do, most importantly was meet Doctor Leeser over at his office to talk about Angel, she was sure that had been his phone call while Ricky was screaming at the other strippers that didn't make the cut.

~"All right. Introductions. I'm Alice, and you are?" Her hand dropped to her side and she stared at him expectantly.

~"Jericho." The name seemed familiar, but she couldn't place it, something in her brain blocked it out. It wasn't important anyway.

~"Well, as much as I'd like to say, it's nice to meet you… again. I won't lie to your face and I'd expect the same return." She motioned for him to follow as she moved to introduce him to all the other strippers, the DJ, the bar tenders, and anyone else she thought was important enough to put a name to a face. When the tour was over and Alice's patience had been worn dangerously thin, she impertinently shook Jericho's hand and waved her goodbyes. She would be back for her shift tonight anyway to help school the new girl on what was expected of her.

~Meeting Leeser took less than an hour and the pseudo funeral for Alice's one good friend was over and done with not long later.

~She laid a delicate, white rose on the newly disturbed dirt, before shedding a few wayward tears the woman was unable to hold back. The losing of one's friend wasn't a business Alice was a stranger to, she'd lost many dear friends throughout the years, but it was never something she was able to become accustomed. With every early death of someone taken far too soon came the knowledge that it wasn't her. That she survived on, while gripping tightly to the memories she had collected of them, leaving her feeling inexplicably hallow. Again, Alice was alone.

~She went to work early that night, not an abnormal difference to any other day she worked, but without anything else to do Alice found herself sitting at the bar, drinking to herself just before her shift. About four beers in and she realized she was buzzing, the lack of food in her gut had made it easy for the alcohol to impair her motor skills. She went to rise to her feet, when her whole world nearly turned upside-down. Her feet grew too heavy to lift and her brain sloshed dangerously to the side, forcing her to follow until her balance tilted and she was sent careening to the floor.

~"You alright?" Someone distinctly familiar asked and a pair of strong hands wrapped around Alice's fallen form to right her back on her feet.

~In her hazy buzz, Alice looked up into the eyes of Jericho, but it wasn't him that she saw. Her eyes looked passed him, through him, and into the turmoil of her memory reel from things better left done and buried, she saw_ him_.

~"Spike," she whispered softly and flung her arms around Jericho's neck, hugging him as tightly as she could muster while tears formed at the corners of her eyes. "I missed you."

~"You're drunk," Jericho muttered and tried to disentangle himself from Alice's tight embrace, but she was relentless. "Come on, Alice. Let go." He tried in vain again to remove the new growth practically attached to his front and again Alice's strength deterred him.

~The tears were free-falling now, and a low reigned in sob exited through a pair of soft light pink lips, lacking their normal bright-red lipsticked hue. He sounded the same, had the same eyes, smelled the same… he even felt the same. But he wasn't, this wasn't Spike. She pulled away from him and sniffled loudly.

~"I'm sorry, I think after today I'm just a little bit…"

~"Out of your mind?"

~Alice mirthlessly laughed and rubbed the tears away, "I thought you were someone else."

~"I could tell. An old boyfriend?"

~The woman snorted, "not even close. We fucked around once or twice while we were drunk, but nothing else."

~"So, why did you—?"

~"Because I loved him."

~There was a moment of silence as Jericho digested this information, looking down at their feet, his black snow boots and her tall, red stiletto heels. "Did he know you loved him?"

~Alice shook her head and pushed herself away from the new club's bouncer, "it doesn't matter now. He's dead." She wobbled towards the door, snatching up her furred parka and started to leave. "Mac, tell Ricky I'll work overtime for him tomorrow and give him half my earnings, but I'm going home. I don't feel well."

~The drunkard door attendant nodded slightly, his full attention on the next girl dancing up on stage. He didn't even see Jericho following the star stripper out the exit.

~"Alice! Alice, wait! Did I say something wrong?" He reached out and grabbed her wrist, twisting her around to face him. "He meant a lot to you. I'm sorry."

~"Don't. Just don't apologize okay? You're right, I'm drunk. I'll be back to my normal bitchy self in the morning. I'm just going to sleep this shit—"

~Her words were cut off when Jericho's attention was no longer on her. He was staring off at the six black, trench-coated men walking towards the club's entrance; their old age fedora hats with the low rise brims looked vaguely recognizable. He'd seen them before, had probably done work for them in his younger years, but for the life of him now, he couldn't place them.

~"You're not even listening to me, you louse!" She shook free of her captor's hold and spun on her heels and crunched off into the snow.

~No, Alice! Wait! I just got—"

~Said stripper whirled and stood on tiptoe to get up in Jericho's face, "kid, there is a line between nice Alice and insane Alice and you're flirting with it. I'll be back tomorrow, all right?"

~"Just come inside, my shift ends at midnight, I'll take you home in my ship."

~"I've walked home in less clothing, Mister Jericho, I hardly think I'm going to freeze to death in my parka."

~The man seemed to be trying to find an excuse, any excuse. His flustered brown eyes with red-gold flecks dotting the center were looking everywhere but Alice. "I'll buy you a shot of Silver Tequila."

~There was a second that Alice debated just going home and snuggling on the couch with a book or a movie and her built in heater, Black-Jack, but the call of the tequila was louder and it wasn't as if Black-Jack was going anywhere anyway. He'd still be home when she got there and still wagging his tail as if she was the best person on this dinky little planet to him.

~"Fine, but I want two shots and I want to smoke a cigarette." She huffed and stalked passed the bouncer, not seeing the almost relieved expression his mask hid. They walked back in, Mac clearly ignoring their very presence, eyes still glued on the stage. He didn't even seem to see the six men coming storming passed him and into one of the back booths. He really was a useless doorman.

~Jericho got the bartenders attention, snapping at Maury and pointing to Alice, "whatever she wants, just give it to her. I've gotta start my shift." He raced off in a flash and Alice muttered lowly, "he'll regret saying that."

~The dark-headed stripper drank slowly this time, watching the provocative dances of her sister strippers and wondered vaguely in her buzzing brain if she looked that…_ disgusting_ up there on that pool as well. Sometimes, some of the girls were inept, downright klutzy when it came to swinging around the pool, taking on the appearance of over fattened heifers rather than the normally pretty girls that seemed to have a kind of slutty class.

~_"Can a stripper even have class?"_ Alice asked herself, taking another sip of the promised Silver Tequila. She loved this junk, could drink it morning, noon, and night if she could've afforded the addiction. It went down smooth, had no gnarly aftertaste, and could sit on the tongue until swallowed without making you gag. She enjoyed it like she enjoyed water… that is, if she had actually like water. Alice was never good at making similarities for herself, so she gave up trying to.

~"Another one, sweetie?" Candy asked, holding the large blue tequila bottle in her hand while Maury was busy cleaning glasses. Tonight wasn't especially busy, there was about fifteen guys spread around the room and some of the off-stage strippers were roaming the room to make extra tips. What was drawing her attention were the six men sitting in the back, their hats and coats still on as if they meant business. To what, Alice couldn't have been sure.

~She watched them for a few minutes, one of them sensing the prickling sensation of being looked at and he peered in Alice's direction, giving her a hard glare. At first, the woman simply smiled charmingly, batting her long, black eyelashes, pretending she hadn't been staring, but the man's expression didn't change and a shot of cold ice water shot down Alice's spine. This man wasn't a thug, or some run of the mill criminal, this man carried a gun, knew how to use it, and she was positive he'd used it often.

~Those beady brown eyes held no remorse, no fear, nothing. They were as dead and soulless as a doll's eyes and twice as frightening. At least Sarah Wets Her Pants didn't put a gun to your head while you were sleeping, she just pissed herself and looked creepy.

~Alice looked away, still feeling the man's gaze targeting her shapely back and ass, "he may have been creepy, but he's still a man." She felt Judgment strapped to her thigh, its comforting barrel doing wonders to ease the fear that was rising in her chest unexpectedly.

~Hours ticked by, men got drunk, some got rowdy and Jericho threw them out. It was fascinating to see that even guys with more than a hundred pounds of pure muscle were no match for the bouncer's deft hands and swift dodging feet.

~As midnight rolled away, the dull roar of music had died down and the strippers were easing themselves into less pop music and into more body stimulating sounds. The six hard set men had gotten up about twenty minutes before and were taken by Raina into Ricky's office, they hadn't come out yet and Alice almost forgot they were here.

~"Ready?" Jericho asked, motioning for Maury to hand him a bill, which the bartender did with an expressionless façade. He looked at the paper and then up to Alice with quizzical eyes, "thought you'd drink more than that."

~"I did," she stated with a smile, "I just paid for what you didn't promise to pay for."

~"That's… unusual, most girls suck me dry if you give them an inch. I thought you were one of those girls."

~Alice chuckled shortly, "you offer to buy me my drinks three years ago, I would have done just that. But…" she sighed in mocking dejection, "I'm old now, so I figure I had better start growing up." She picked up her coat and walked out with Jericho to his cruiser ship.

~He popped the top and climbed in, not helping her climb into her seat, but that was fine with Alice, she had grown used to the dying ways of chivalry long ago and didn't even utter a word. The glass whooshed closed and Jericho started the engine. From her vantage point, she could see the man's fingers dancing across the keyboards as if he knew this thing about as well as he knew his own body. It was funny, another thing that just reminded her of Spike. Funny… but annoying.

~The club's doors swung open and the dangerous looking gentlemen came out, filing out in order with Ricky in tow behind them. They talked for a moment as the ship warmed up and just as Jericho took off, Alice noticed her boss hand the leader of the black trenchcoats something wrapped in brown paper. It was strange and the woman made a mental note to ask Ricky what it was all about tomorrow. The business couldn't take another hit of gangster coming in and taking profits, it had happened before and Alice would be damned before she let this place that had become her home these few years go up in flames thanks to some mob boss who felt he was owed something.

~Alice fingered Judgment gently and grew comfort from the gun's presence. It would protect her as it had done for years now, of that she was certain…

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><p>Author's Note – Hope you're still enjoying my story! R&amp;R<p> 


	4. Pluto Blues Pt 3

Guns, Roses, and the Queen of Hearts 4

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><p>AN – Sorry for the longer than normal delay. I will try to get updates on a weekly to bi-weekly basis from now on. Hope that will water your tasty pallets. Read on.

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><p>Chapter 4<p>

Pluto Blues Pt. 3

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><p>~Alice yawned and stretched as she flopped herself down on her aged, threadbare couch. She had pulled out of her fuzzy, white parka only moments ago and was making herself perfectly ready to take a long sleep. There were two night moon passes before she had to return to work which was more than eighteen hours in total, if a woman couldn't get enough beauty sleep in that amount of time, than they didn't deserve to be beautiful at all, Alice thought.<p>

~She unstrapped her heeled stilettos and glanced over in the direction of the bandaged man that had followed her home like some worried puppy. He was sitting in her computer desk chair, the back flipped around so he could lay his arms and hands on the back's top edge with his legs straddled out comfortably.

~"So, I'm safe in my own house. It's warm and cozy as you can see. You don't have to watch out for me anymore," she didn't mean to sound rude, but she did want to make Jericho understand that she wasn't the hostessing kind of woman. If he wanted to hang out, he would do what she wanted to do and right now she wanted to strip down naked, crawl into bed and sleep. For a moment she debated asking him to join her, but she brushed the thought away thinking it to have been just been a bad reaction to the tequila from earlier.

~"What do you do at night when you get home?" He asked.

~"You mean aside from fuck whatever man I bring home?" She sighed and pretended to look pensive, "I shower, shit, shave, eat, walk the dog, watch some Big Shot, and sleep. What do you think goes on here on Pluto? This is one of the most desolate back ass planets in the entire solar system. People come here to hide."

~"What are you here hiding from?" Jericho asked with all seriousness. His ski masked face was foreboding in the low light coming from a single lamp on the couch's arm rest table, but for some reason Alice wasn't afraid. His eyes were warm enough, and his body language didn't seem to be hiding anything. He was just an annoyingly curious, more gentlemanly type than she was used to.

~"Nothing. I came here to live out my days, I guess. I buried a lunk head on this rock and I'm a bit attached to him, so I just haven't wanted to leave."

~"Spike?" Jericho asked, remembering the name of the man she had called him hours ago and he was sufficed when she nodded, but was curious when she didn't add more. "Tell me about him."

~"I don't want to."

~"Come on, Alice. You hugged me as if you hadn't seen me in years and called me by some other guy's name, in some cases that's cheating." He smiled through his mask and Alice chuckled lightly, the morbid humor in the joke wasn't all that funny, but for the moment it had tickled her the right way.

~She smiled sadly and looked up towards her ceiling, reaching for her parka she grabbed her cigarettes and offered one to him. He took one obligingly and lit both his then hers.

~"It's a long story."

~"We've got time."

~She inhaled deeply the cancerous stick and let the smoke to swirl about her head before it lifted away and dissipated. She supposed they did, but she wasn't so sure about delving into the long, arduous story set back in times where she didn't know who she was or where she had come from. The memories reeled inside her head like a long lost movie she hadn't seen in years and the edges were fuzzy and aged.

~"I'm older than I look," she began with a feral grin. "I was born in nineteen ninety-four." It was funny to watch Jericho's eyes widen slightly as he digested the information, but said nothing and let her continue. "When I was twenty I was in an accident that caused me to be iced for fifty-four years and when I woke up I had amnesia, so I didn't remember who I was. There was a few years of bumbling around, but when I was twenty-three I was invited to join this ragtag team of bounty hunters on the ship The Bebop. There was just Jet who owned the hunk of junk and his asshole cohort Spike. We did bounties together to make money, although a lot of time we never had anything and living the life we had was never easy."

~She inhaled another long drag and blew it out, "then Ed joined us, some computer techy kid none of us were sure what to do with, and we managed to screw up a bounty and ended up with Ein, Black-Jack's mom." When the dog heard his name called, he looked up from his comfortable position on the other couch end, opposite his mistress and shook his tailless butt.

~"We did bounties, scrounged around for food, were hunted by gangs and in the end we just all drifted apart. Ed left us to go with her dad, taking the stupid dog with her and I left a little bit after Spike died. Jet tried to do bounties by himself but ended up dying from pneumonia." She mirthlessly laughed, "of all things, that hunk of cyborg pieces gave up the ghost thanks to a cold. I always thought he was stronger than that, but I think losing us all made him old and tired."

~Jericho listened with rapt interest and smoked his cig while she talked, "what about Spike? How'd he die?"

~Sadness crept along the edges of her mind and sunk into the emerald green irises. She pushed back the lump in her throat and continued on, "he was an idiot. He used to be in a crime syndicate and when he took his best friend's girl, Spike got himself into more trouble than he could handle."

~"It's always about a girl," he added.

~"She wasn't just any girl. She was…" she paused looking for the right word, "perfect. Smart, good with guns, resourceful, beautiful. The perfect woman for Spike and any guy dumb enough not to see she was dangerous and off limits."

~"The best kind."

~"Yeah, the kind that got you hooked on them before she killed you. Her name was Julia and she was like Spike's drug of choice. He didn't want to leave her, but when she didn't show up to run away with him, he left without her." Alice laughed at the memory of listening to Spike tell his own life story to her and how she had inwardly hated a dead woman she had never met before. "When she came back, I knew that whatever Spike and I had shared didn't mean a damn thing compared to her. I was a fling for him while we were drunk or needed the release, but she was his whole damn life."

~"Sounds like you felt something for him that he didn't return." He crushed his cigarette into the ashtray on the desk, leaning back and interlacing his fingers behind his head.

~Alice was all ready on another cigarette and nodded quickly, "I was a stupid kid, though. A twenty-three year old going for an older man. Spike was too broken for someone like me to fix and honestly, I was all ready too broken to try to fix anyone. But he was the only man I'd ever wanted to be with. You know every girl's wet panty dream, the house with the picket fence, the stupid rugrats running around driving you crazy." She shook her head to drown out the memories and the welling emotions.

~"So, how'd he die?"

~"He refused to let his fucking past go and he walked into the syndicate's front door and blew the place up." She flung herself to her feet and stalked towards her bedroom, leaving Jericho to dumbfoundedly stare down the hall while she threw things around her bedroom and stripped down to her red lacey panties and bra.

~Black-Jack made a moaning sound from his end on the couch and hopped down warily, planting his fuzzy ass beside the only other confused male in the room and waited to see if his mistress would be coming back to join them. She would, but not before dragging out another bottle of hard liquor, taking a long swig, and to search for something long since lost.

~From the bedroom both dog and man could hear Alice cough as she took the first drink and clear her throat after the second. If she was coughing than Jericho knew the alcohol was strong. He climbed to his feet and made his way towards the woman's bedroom, knowing it might not have been the greatest idea in the world, but wanting to make sure she wasn't doing something stupid.

~Alice was stripped down to her sexy lace underwear and was storming around her bedroom in her six inch heels, fully intent on finding something that was lost. She was pulling out drawers from her dresser and throwing out piles of folded clothes while she balanced the bottle of what appeared to be whiskey in her free hand.

~"Looking for something?" Jericho asked and Alice spun to face him.

~"I thought you were leaving."

~"You look like you need the company."

~The woman balked with a snide laugh and handed the man her bottle to dig deeper into her drawers. She heard him sniff the glass and take a swig of his own returning his attention back to her. "Stupid, piece of shit!" She growled, slamming the drawer closed and yanking open another.

~Jericho watched the twenty-something woman bend over, the panties disappearing in all the right places and her supple, heart-shaped ass wiggled enticingly for him. This was first time he'd seen her nakedness to this degree before, she hadn't even stripped on the pole yet while he'd been there in the club, and he relished for a moment the tightening of her leg muscles, the sharp sway of her hips, and how flat and toned her stomach was. If she wasn't so light-skinned or dark haired, she would have looked like some Greek goddess he'd seen in history vids years ago, but none of that took away from seductive beauty Alice literally dripped with. Even the black thigh holster for her rather large gun only added to her zealous appeal.

~"I can't find it!" She jawed, slamming the drawers shut, leaving what she had all ready pulled out on the floor.

~"What?" He asked, nonchalantly taking a third swig of the whiskey. It was one of the better brands and aged to sheer perfection. Another sip or two and he would be holding onto the floor for dear life, praying he wouldn't fall off Pluto and out into space.

~"The pictures," Alice grabbed the bottle back, following her company's lead and downing a larger portion than she should have. She came up for air harshly, coughing and choking almost violently and slammed the bottle down, sloshing much of the liquid around until some of it came out the top and splashed up Alice's arm.

~"Of them?" The question came and the woman nodded, looking curiously at the droplets of alcohol glittering in the low light across her fair skin. Without thinking, she bobbed her head forward and licked up some of the drops, drawing her light pink tongue across the flesh in a motion that was entirely too seductive to be appropriate and Jericho's groin tightened uncomfortably against the tight, thick material of his jeans.

~"Yeah," she breathed out huskily, the beginning effects of the alcohol were affecting her mind.

~"You should put something warm on. It's going to be a cold night," Jericho instructed, spinning on heel and heading towards the living room. He needed to get out of here before he made a stupid, influence riddled decision he would regret in the morning. He didn't come here to get laid, that was never his intention. A guilty conscious had commanded he take the pretty stripper woman home and that was all he had intended to do. Now she was safe and sound and could handle herself. If she needed him, he was only across the way and could be reached without issue.

~"I'm going to head out," and he made his way to the door, not hearing the scantily clad woman float up behind him and touch his shoulder.

~"Don't," she whispered, her gentle touch sending an array of fuzzy feelings ricocheting though him, starting with his head and ending in his crotch. "Don't go. I do need some company."

~"I didn't mean that kind, Alice." He was firm, but a shard of disillusioned softness must've leaked in because Alice pressed her body flush against his in a vice-grip hug both were sure he wouldn't shake off.

~"Just stay… alittle… longer." Her hands reached up to his face and forced him to turn and face her. She wasn't especially tall, but in her heels her forehead came up to his nose. She tried to remove his black ski mask, but he snatched up her hands tightly, shaking his head.

~"The mask stays." It was a useless rejection that he himself didn't even fully believe, and instead of having the effect of deterring the woman, she stood as erect as her body would allow, kissing the fabric of his mask where his lips hid.

~Without really thinking about it, Jericho's arms wrapped around the small woman, shifting lower and lower, until they could cup her thick bottom half. He lifted her an inch or two off the ground, squeezing the two orbs tightly in his hands while she kissed him. Her tongue had darted out, begging permission to slip passed his own lips, and begrudgingly, against his better judgment, he allowed her access.

~Jericho stalked slowly to the old couch, careful not to drop the light weighted woman on her dog who was moaning and lowly growling as he raced back and forth across the couch. He didn't quite understand what was going on, and was hell bent on figuring it out.

~The man knelt down between Alice's shapely legs, never breaking the crushing kisses they traded tit-for-tat. Her hands were entangled around his neck, while his continued to venture lower. They found her breasts and squished them together, gaining a low chuckle from his female counterpart.

~"Gentle," she murmured, eyes glazed over with waves of wanton lust. She had all ready forgone her inhibitions, even while Jericho continued to fight his. They warned this wasn't a good idea, that he wasn't on this planet to screw strippers. He was here gathering intel. But his long misused lower brain screamed for release, one only a woman of Alice's caliber was able to give.

~He was about to pull away and tell her he couldn't do this, it wasn't right, but as he yanked his face away from a bruising kiss he felt something grab his groin and squeeze it non too gently. He hissed through clenched teeth, bucking his hips against the feeling it pulled out of him. She was good, almost too good at it.

~"Alice," he mumbled, feeling her violent motions turn to soft rousings and he almost lost his mind. "This isn't right."

~Looking up at him, she grinned wickedly, "what do you have your own Julia somewhere? I won't tell her if you won't." Her fingers were skillfully pulling apart his button and slowly unzipping his jeans. If he didn't stop this now, it wasn't going to stop.

~"Yes," he ground out and like a cold splash of freezing water to the face, Alice froze. She pulled her hand away and seemed to be looking for a way out. Her eyes darted like some frightened animal and Jericho was sure he saw a kind of stunned emotion swimming around in her irises. She hadn't been told "no" before, or if she had it was only done so by that man she lovingly had called lout earlier.

~He pulled back from her, turning away to rearrange his throbbing erection that painfully had begun pressing against his pants as it begged to be freed. "I'm sorry, Alice. None of this was intentional." When he turned back to face her, she was all ready gone. The place she had wantingly mewled only seconds ago was empty Black-Jack along with her. And then he heard the bedroom door slam.

~Wincing, Jericho took that as a sign to leave and he dug his keys out from his bomber's jacket pocket and went for the door. His hand hovered over the knob, a wrenching, slimy feeling of disgust with himself was welling up inside him and he had to fight it down to get outside. He wanted to go follow her down the hall to apologize, but his less gentleman-like side won out and he closed the door quietly behind him as he went out into the snow.

~Alice didn't cry, had felt she had done enough of that today to warrant another tear jerking whine fest she wasn't in the mood to entertain at the moment. She sniped and growled from her naked position under the bed sheets, flailing out every few minutes to toss herself over in an never ending struggle to find a comfortable sleeping position. At one point, she'd almost kicked Black-Jack clean off the bed and in an effort to avoid his mistress' mayhem, the poor beaten pooch skittered off the safety of his warm, cozy bed.

~The was finally a moment of listless surrender when Alice found herself flat on her back, staring up at her ceiling and she asked herself what in the name of whatever god existed possessed her to think it was even a remotely good idea to push herself on a man she'd just barely met. Aside from the fact that alcohol was involved. She was normally good with her liquor, even if her stupid conscious told her she was lying. When it came down to the wire, she didn't sleep with random men, didn't do blatantly stupid things… lately, and she only made bad choices with a man long since dead.

~That was what bothered her the most. It had been a few years since Spike's death. A few years since she watched the man she wanted to be more than a once in awhile fuck buddy, fade away right in front of her, and since then she had prided herself on only one, one night stand. She hadn't touched a man… figuratively, since. So she wondered within the inner turmoil of herself what had possessed her to feel up Jericho. He wasn't handsome that she could see and though she could plainly tell he was fit and active, it wasn't so much his physique she was interested in. It was the way her heart pounded when she stood near him, even the second she'd met him, her heart wanted to throb out of her chest and bleed out all over the floor. Something about the odd, ski masked man just mad her blood simmer underneath her skin.

~When she finally drifted off into slumber, Alice felt the memory reel of things better left dead and buried begin. She dreamed about Edward, Ein, and Jet, mostly things that weren't important and some things that were. The conversations and poorly constructed meals Jet used to make. The nonsensical verbal vomiting Ed always seemed to do. And even a one-sided conversation with Ein that ended up with the small Corgi dog cocking his head at her much like her puppy-dog son did to his mistress now. But what effected her the most, the dreams that sunk in and caused the most volatile reactions inside Alice's mind, were the ones with Spike. Everything seemed to always center around that louse of a man and as much as that fact infuriated her, it also comforted her. The problem was… she still loved a dead man and that made all the difference…

~Her work week started off as any other one had. Alice got into uniform where she then presently stripped it off. She collected her money, paid Ricky what he was due and went home at night. Every time she was at work, there was Jericho, watching her and keeping his distance. He didn't seem much inclined to talk since their nearly too close contact and that was fine with the stripper. She ignored him as much as he avoided her, but she knew he was watching and could feel his heated mahogany colored gaze constantly following her.

~Alice occupied her down time with television and sleeping, though she tried to sleep less and keep herself busy more. When she slept, she had a bad habit of having the same nightmarish memory of Spike's final moments on earth put on auto-replay every time she closed her eyes. The images felt as if they had been burned on the back of her eyelids and she couldn't stand the old remembrances.

~Days eeked by and passed into nearly a month and Alice found herself less and less inclined to find the gumption to get herself up for work every night. It was then that she realized she was in a funk that she didn't want to be in and needed to find a way out. She needed to make money and if all these Spike and Jericho issues weren't going to work themselves out in her mind like everything else in her life she managed to will away, then she would fix it, or at least try to.

~The night of her normal early night off, Alice finished her routine as she always did, a dance without a promise of another. Her cloudy thoughts had been especially loud today, but she quieted them when she went to her dressing room to change. Outside was Jericho, guarding the doorway to the stripper's hall and today he sported a highly unstylish face covered with bandages and though the young dark-hair woman always wondered what he was hiding underneath the masks and the wrappings, she never asked.

~Alice floated passed Jericho without a word, eyes focused ahead on her dressing room and she didn't even stop when the man made a throat clearing noise as if catch her attention. She ignored him and closed the door behind her. Right now wasn't the time to be fixing her relationship -if what the two of them had could be called that- with Jericho. Tonight was for Spike and Faye.

~In a moment she was a flurry of action, slipping from her silk robe and climbing into her warm winter gear, decked out with a thicker, fur-lined parka with hood, thick gloves, pants and snow boots that came up to her knees. Pluto was having an especially freezing blizzard outside and though the wise choice would have been to make Spike and Faye wait until the weather let up a bit, but Alice couldn't bring herself to skip even one day.

~She stormed passed Jericho with her bundle of roses in hand and paused only long enough to smile at the man quietly guarding the door and make her way out the back.

~The storm outside was as restless as waves of bombarding ocean water in a typhoon. The wind whipped up crazily, slamming hard into Alice with angry fury. This wasn't a night she should have be out, but her heart didn't have strength to leave Faye Valentine and Spike Speigal out in the cold on a night she has promised them she would be there to visit.

~ Staggering out into the street and off the barely shielding overhang of Loveless' wildly flapping tent that flashed the building's neon sign, Alice wandered into the frigid night, tightly grasping the edges of her coat together around her neck to keep out the wind.

~ "I should have brought the ship tonight," Alice complained bitterly, feeling herself making little progress in the icy cold and turning back for only a second to shield her eyes from the biting snow that stung and froze her eyelids every time she blinked. She noticed the neon sign of the strip club was finally out of sight, but with the blizzarding wall of snow coming down Alice couldn't have been sure exactly how far away she had gone.

~A skeletal shattering shiver raced up the stripper's spine and her pearly white teeth chattered as if in a frenzy, "dammit!" She growled out, voice cracking from the cold, but she refused to turn back. By the time she got back to either her home or the club, the graveyard would be closed and for tonight, as Alice felt her insides chipping and cracking, she needed the warmth of the two sleeping dead that they spiritually offered.

~Another tearing gust of wind, blasted in Alice's face, throwing her off balance and sending her careening into the ankle high snow. The fragile roses, covered in plastic wrap to protect the delicate petals from the wind was sent sprawling from her grasp and the loosely tied ribbon holding the stems together unraveled. Roses whipped everywhere, the crimson red against the pure white of the snow looked more like droplets of blood rather than delicate plants.

~ Alice floundered momentarily on the ground, fighting against the wind to right herself, and as she climbed to her feet she launched herself towards the nearest rose that was blowing away in the wind. "No!" She was squealing over the gale of the storm and fumbling around for the plant, but just as he fingers would have reached out for it, it sunk beneath the frigid cold snow dunes that were quickly growing all around her.

~ "What are you doing out here?" Someone familiar yelled out to her and a pair of strong, thick gloved hands reached around Alice's middle and hoisted her into a standing position. She tried to flop herself back down, the frantic search for even one red rose was nearly all consuming. So much so that the young woman hardly even noticed the man standing behind her and holding her steady.

~ "Let me go!" She hollered, but the grip around her waist was like iron, "I have to give him one! Let go!"

~"Look at me, Alice!" Jericho bellowed and spun the young stripper around to face him. "You're shaking. Your lips are blue. If you're out any longer you're going to die. Get in my ship, I'll take you where you want to go." He watched Alice's eyes fall back towards the roses, but they were now out of sight, all of them completely gone.

~ "I don't have anything for them anymore," she hung her head.

~ "They're dead, Alice. I don't think they give a shit." He hauled her up and onto his shoulder even as she kicked and squalled. Her fists beat against his back, but they were shaking so badly that Jericho hardly noticed. He threw her unceremoniously into his two-person cockpit and climbed infront of her.

~The glass whooshed overhead of them and the engine roared, blasting white hot air in Alice's direction. It wasn't until that very moment that she realized just how cold she really was. Her entire body was racked with shivers, but she had been so cold she had gone numb.

~ "Where am I going?" Jericho asked, the obvious distaste for this whole situation apparent in his voice.

~ "The-the ceme-t-t-tary." She stuttered out through clattering teeth.

~ "You mean he's buried here!?"

~ Alice looked up from her feet towards Jericho's bandaged face, "why d-do you think I-I'm out here? Where did you think I was going with a bunch of off planet flowers? A wedding?" The blazing heat from the cockpit's heater had all ready warmed her body back up to the proper temperature, and the rising redness in her face was testament to that

~ Her hair was a wind flustered mess and the sticking snow had now melted and wetted her parka fur. All in all, Alice looked like still shiver, hot mess.

~ Jericho grunted angrily, bitching under his breath how much of a pain in the ass this woman was and kicked his cruiser into gear before jetting off into the storm.

~ There was all consuming silence while they drove, neither one wanting to break the tension they could tangibly feel. And it wasn't until the gates of the cemetery poked through the blizzard that Alice finally spoke.

~ "There," she murmured, pointing over the man's shoulder. Her well manicured, bright red nail polished fingers glistened in the low lights from the cockpit controls and for a second, Jericho was transfixed on her hand. They looked like the hands of a still young woman. Soft from lotion, smelling just lightly like a flowery fragrance the man couldn't place, and a creamy complected color that gave away her heritage, he suddenly wanted them to touch him, or he touch them.

~ He shook away the thoughts and landed a few steps away from the cemetery's entrance, opening the top to let Alice meander out.

~ She seemed boneless for a moment, the heat and cold turning her legs to jelly while she acclimated to the freeze right out of the warmth of the cruiser.

~ Jericho made no move to join her, keeping his hand firmly grasped to the ship's steering wheel. He wasn't going to follow, it wasn't his place, but he would be damned if he didn't say he was curious to see the graves. The reason that forced this idiotic, careless woman to nearly freeze herself to death.

~ "Dammit," he growled under his breath, glaring at his ship's mechanical vid-screen and jumped out of the cruiser to appease his curiosity.

~ Alice had all ready made it nearly to the grave markers, plainly seen in her tan colored parka and brown fur. The wind had almost eerily died down now, leaving only bits of swirling air to kick up bits of snow and twirl them across the landscape, before gently dropping them back down.

~ This place was terrifyingly still and it made the hairs on the back of Jericho's neck stand on end. He didn't like this place and it sat uncomfortably in the pit of his stomach.

~ Alice flopped down onto her knees in front of a gravestone and reached out with her ungloved hands to touch the granite. "I'm late," she whispered softly, "but I made it."

~ It was strange to Jericho, watching this woman talk to the slab of cold rock like it was a real person, and though he wasn't intentionally trying to listen in, he heard her talk to a man long since dead.

~ The banter was light, Alice cracked a joke and laughed at herself over it, describing the welling feelings she had causing a torrential flood of emotions within her. This wasn't how the young man had thought Alice talked or looked like when she was alone. He'd imagined her harder, colder, more jaded and less… girlie. She acted more like a broken fangirl, then a woman who toted a gun and used it.

~ Alice, at length, kissed her hand and touched the marker lovingly and touched the rock beside Spike's which Jericho could only guess to be another lost loved one. She climbed to her feet and spun to face him, a look of extreme calm having come over her and she looked completely serene.

~ "I'm ready."

~ "Good, 'cuz I'm cold," Jericho took his hands out of his pocket and turned to head towards the waiting ship, stopping dead in his tracks at the awaiting sight of four black trench coated men walked towards them.

~ A reel of thoughts clashed into Jericho then, mostly apprehension and cautiousness. These men weren't here to mourn the dead, they weren't dressed for it and they collectively had eyes set straight for Alice and him. They looked dangerous.

~ Without saying a word, one of them reached inside his coat and pulled out a black gun, taking aim quickly and firing the first shot.

~ Jericho was all ready in motion, even as the gun was being pulled. He snatched up Alice's hand and jerked her sideways into the snow, rolling them both behind a nearby gravestone.

~ The loud, booming sound echoed off the graves, leaving no doubt in either of the duo's mind what these men were here to do.

~ "What the fuck!?" Alice shrieked, crawling to better cover herself behind a large marble angel statue a few feet away. She was answered by a hail of bullets, most of them hitting the statue and tearing away chunks of frozen rock even as the woman cowered and hid.

~ She looked to Jericho who was all ready cocked and aimed, returning fire without a sound and something within Alice clicked. Her hand snatched up the large handgun strapped to her leg and glanced over her hiding place to get a better shot.

~ A bullet grazed by her head and she ducked instinctively, these guys weren't messing around, they were here to kill them. But for the life of Alice, she couldn't figure out why.

~ The black coated men had spread out by now and from the corner of Alice's mind she could see one coming around the corner nonchalantly and aimed to fire at her.

~ Dodging and diving for a new hiding place, Alice looked up from the snow dune she had taken cover behind to see Jericho racing head long through the graveyard, firing as he went. He had downed one of the four men, leaving only three left, but he seemed to be struggling. His left arm sleeve was drenched in blood and Alice knew instantly he had been hit, but the extent of the damage she couldn't be sure about.

~ Another wave of bullets streaked over her head, one piercing the snow hill she hid behind and startling her to action. She flung herself into motion and was sent careening to the metal gate, turning to glance in her enemy's direction and firing for his chest.

~ A sense of ill placed excitement washed over her when she got the man in the shoulder and he tucked and rolled across the aisle way and behind another grave marker to hide himself. His shooting arm may have been out of commission, but Alice didn't hold her breath against hope that he couldn't use the other.

~ She stood out in the open now, like a deer caught in the headlights of a fast oncoming car and she didn't know what to do when another man caught sight of her and aimed to kill.

~ Jericho flung himself on her, knocking them both to the ground, "get down, moron!" He yelled, rolling off her and struggling to get to his feet. He'd smashed into something hard hidden underneath the white blanket and his shoulder was now shrieking with pain. A gush of blood dribbled down his arm and he was gritting his teeth against the wash of writhing anger that crawled and simpered beneath the surface.

~ "We're pinned," he ground out.

~ Alice glared at Jericho, "I'm am not going to die here." And for added measure, "neither are you. You still have your own Julia to get back to."

~ She stood up straight from where they crouched and fired directly into the face of one of the men, watching in almost slow motion as the man's facial features seemed to disintegrate away to nothingness and blood and brain matter splattered on the snow behind him. He fell and was motionless.

~ There was only two of them left, one of which was rounding a nearby aisle in a crouched position and aiming a rather large automatic rifle at them while the other was no where to be found.

~ "Get up!" Alice yelled and helped haul Jericho's nearly dead weight bulk to a standing position, tearing off towards the cemetery entrance.

~ The rifle went off beside them, annihilating a cherub statue to pieces and spraying the rock bits in all directions. They were so close, Alice couldn't stop now. She gripped tighter to Jericho's hand and as they came to a skidding stop beside the cruiser, she almost threw the tall man in.

~ Climbing into the pilot seat herself, she jerked the ship into action, the top gliding on just as another rifle blast bounced harmlessly off the ship's side and window. They were safe… for now.

~ She lifted off shakily, cursing loudly about the touchiness of the pilot controls. In the second seat she heard her cohort climbing out of his jacket to take a better look at his wounds and maybe get them patched up to keep from bleeding all over his fire engine red, leather seats.

~ Alice turned on the afterburner rockets and blazed passed the ship of the men whom they had managed to escape from, but not before the stripper paid them back. She slammed Jericho's ship's right wing into their glass cockpit and smiled when the wing tore through the glass and made it impossible to follow them.

~ The entire ship jerked hard, causing Jericho to cuss up a storm in the back seat, but he quieted afterward, focusing his attention solely on the bleeding.

~ They drove for a few minutes, not really heading anywhere in particular, and all in silence, until, "I'm sorry," Alice murmured. "They'e after me." She looked down at her lap.

~ Jericho was tightening his makeshift bandages with his teeth and glanced in the woman's direction, "why would they be after you?" He reached beside her and pulled out his black ski mask and yanked it over his face to cover the scraggly bandages that were barely covering his face anymore. Alice hadn't yet seen his face, that was a good thing, it might have terrified her.

~ "Why else would men with guns come chasing after someone?" She was steering them towards Loveless, that much they both knew. "I stole something I shouldn't have."

~ This perked the passenger's attention, he looked carefully at Alice, but said nothing.

~ "After Spike died, I heard that the syndicate he was working for was merging with the Black Dogs crime mafia. I was on Mars then and Jet was all ready dead. Ein and Ed were gone and I was alone, bar tending for scraps." She said all this bitterly and turned away so Jericho couldn't see her placid expression, her long hair covering much of her face.

~ "I broke into their base and stole back something that was mine."

~ "What'd you take?"

~ Alice reached into her lap and held up the large barreled cannon that was almost comically too big for her small hands. "This was Spike's gun. He would have wanted me to have it, but even after I was told I could have it, the Red Dragons took it from me."

~ "So, you broke in to steal a gun? And now you're being followed because of an old pea shooter that belonged to a dead guy?"

~ She glared at him lethally, effectively shutting him up, but after a minute her expression softened, "it's not just the gun. It's what's in the gun." She haltingly handed her firearm over, dropping it into the young man's hands.

~ Jericho stared and held the weapon up to his face, "you've lost me. What's in it?"

~ "A microchip. They were going to give it to the next Black Dogs leader."

~ "But you said they were merging."

~ Alice flipped her hair and smiled genuinely at the man with a bit of white hot crazy dancing around in her pretty green eyes. "They were going to kill off the Red Dragon's leader and take over. This was the first prize they took. They implanted a microchip of all the Red Dragons personal information in this."

~ "Why was this gun so special? Why not something worth more?"

~ "They were trying to steal the ex-leader's sword, but when I broke into their building I guess they hadn't been able to get it. So I suppose this is the next best thing." Alice turned her gaze back to the road and her eyes widened when she saw a brightly glowing orange halo encircling several buildings up ahead.

~ "What the…?" Jericho leaned forward, glancing past Alice, "fire."

~ Loveless was engulfed in flames and out on the front steps was a chess pool of gore, the likes of which Alice hadn't ever seen before. Bodies of the strippers, the other bouncer Mac, and the friendly bar tender Alice had grown lay strewn out into street while people looked on from their apartment buildings and did nothing to help.

~ "Oh my god…" Alice mumbled. She cranked the steering wheel and made ready to land, but her partner grabbed her shoulder and pointed to the end of street where another cruiser ship seemed to be lying in wait.

~ "We need to get out of here," Jericho ground out, and in an instant Alice was all ready revving the ship's engines to race home. She turned the aircraft slowly, but a pair of headlights down the street came on and without warning came at them.

~ "Shit!" Alice was yelling, "Hold on!" She saw the first hail of bullets from the other cruiser come whizzing by, a few grazing the ship's paint.

~ Yanking the craft away, Alice felt the engine roar to life as she burned the slower cruiser and left the horrendous scene as quickly as she was able to.

~"They probably know where you live if they're after you," Jericho said at length, watching as buildings flashed by and became more and more sparse the further into the empty business district they went.

~ "I don't care. I have to get Black-Jack."

~ "It's a dog, Alice. He isn't worth an ambush."

~ "Then when we get there, I'll get out and you can leave, but I'm not leaving my dog alone."

~ There was silence for a long time, neither of them talking while the stripper raced head long for the only other friend it seemed that was still alive. She wouldn't take 'no' for an answer and if this asshole didn't like that then he could leave as soon as she was home, but until then he was along for the ride.

~ Her building seemed quiet, nothing moved. Even the wind had quieted down and the snow was no longer falling. If Loveless hadn't been in flames, Alice might have thought there wasn't anything amiss.

~ She parked the cruiser and dashed across the yard to her front door, carefully looking around to make sure that no one could sneak up on her. She slammed into her heavy, metal door and shockingly tried to jam her keys into the lock. The bolt gave way to the keys and the young woman threw the door open just as Jericho came dawdling along behind her.

~ "Black-Jack!" Alice yelled, reaching for the light switch so she could see.

~ Her apartment was in shambles, items were strewn across the floor, things ripped from their hiding places and shoved wherever was convenient. Glass was broken and her computer tossed to the floor in a mess of mechanical parts and pieces.

~ Alice's eyes widened and she dashed down the hall to her bedroom, calling the name of her little dog over and over again.

~ "I can't find him, Jericho!" She yelled back through the house.

~ "He's probably gone. When they got in here they really tore this place apart." He picked up the remains of a music box that must have been pushed over in the pursuit of the object of their attentions.

~ "Black-Jack! Come here, you little shit!" Alice sounded frantic now. She was moving blankets and clothes in her bedroom now, looking underneath for the poor pup's hiding place.

~ "We should get out of here, Alice. They're coming for you. They know where you live."

~ Alice came racing around the corner, a sack in one hand while she was cramming random things into it with the other. She snatched up the music box and threw it into her bag, "I'm not going anywhere without him."

~ A few moments of hurried cramming and picking up a large black box from the floor of the living room that had been hiding beneath a pushed over bookcase, Alice stalked towards the kitchen.

~ "Lights on… Shit," she had forgotten her computer lay in shambles on the floor. She angrily slapped on the lights and slipped on the pool of blood sitting just out of her not-yet adjusted eyes. Sent careening to the floor, Alice squealed as she went and slammed hard into the concrete, seeing a bursting of stars and fireworks flash across her vision as she hit.

~ Groaning, she heard in an almost a far away voice, Jericho call her name and try to help her to a sitting position. She looked around dazed and amidst the now scrambled haze of her thoughts, she saw Black-Jack lying motionless a few inches away from her calf.

~ "NO!" She screamed, wrenching herself out of the man's arms and clambering over to her poor puppy's body. Scooping him up, she could see and feel the blood sinking into her jacket, but she didn't care. "Black-Jack," Alice whimpered, hugging him tightly and praying for him to be all right.

~ She couldn't hear a heartbeat, couldn't feel his breath and within the small violet-headed woman, a bit more of herself seemed to crack away from her.

~ "He's gone," Jericho's voice was gentle and he was carefully trying to help Alice put the small, furry creature back down. He could hear the tell-tale signs of a large cruiser coming this way and the best choice would have been to leave now, before they were killed themselves.

~ "No," Alice was blubbering, hesitantly trying to put Black-Jack down, but her heart couldn't seem to wrap around that decision.

~ "Come on, Alice. We need to go." He was standing now and trying to pull her, but she wouldn't budge. "Please, Alice. Don't make me have to drag you."

~ After placing a light kiss to the poor dog's head, Alice finally let him go and let Jericho drag her back to the red cruiser in the yard. She watched longingly as her building's front door was soon out of sight and a kind of numbness washed over her.

~ As the cruiser climbed in altitude, Alice slowly began to realize that she was leaving now. The place she had buried her dead, made a home, had a job, was now being left behind. For the first time in years, Alice felt alone.

~ She watched as they left Pluto's man-made atmosphere, feeling the gentle gliding of the craft floating out into starry space and she laid back into her seat as exhaustion and numbs washed over her.

~ "Where am I taking you," Jericho asked quietly, sensing the heaviness in the ship.

~ "Jupiter," Alice whispered, "to the Bebop…"

* * *

><p>AN - And now comes the Bebop. Thought we'd never get to it did ya? YAY! TIME FOR BOUNTY HUNTING AND SYNDICATE ESCAPING!


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